Psychoanalysis – mags neg General 1NC

Framework – AT: Fairness

The demand for fairness is grounded in envy --- this ensures even a perfectly equal society is fraught with suspicions and resulting violence

This is why equality doesn’t solve the problem of the social antagonism. Rather than eliminating the envy of the other’s enjoyment, a sense of justice exacerbates it. The demand for equality and justice has its origins in envy of the other’s enjoyment. According to Joan Copjec, “Envy is not simply an impediment, but the very condition of our notion of justice.”35 Because the idea of equality and justice is rooted in envy, each member of society has constant suspicions about the others and their commitment to forgoing pleasure for the sake of the social order as a whole. Suspicions continually emerge, revealing that the social antagonism remains in force in such a way that makes eruptions of violence inevitable.

Framework – AT: Legal Education

Status quo legal education is just like the plan, a repeated, hysterical demand expressed in a language that can never fully encompass desire --- legal discourse subconsciously reinforces the structures of oppression because of a refusal to recognize the relevance of psychoanalysis

ARRIGO 98 --- Institute of Psychology, Law and Public Policy (BRUCE A., “REASON AND DESIRE IN LEGAL EDUCATION: A PSYCHOANALYTIC-SEMIOTIC CRITIQUE”, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law VoI.XI no.31 [1998], Springer Link)//trepka

Critical commentary on the nature of law and legal education is rather commonplace. Significant contributions developed during the Legal Realist eraZizand its successor the Critical Legal Studies (CLS) movement 2 exposed the layered dimensions of subjectivity, hierarchy and politics, governing both legal practice and legal discourse. Most recently, the legacy of the CLS agenda and its acerbic critique of legal education, reasoning, and decision making has found growing legitimacy in the writings of several structural and post-structural commentators. The criticisms found in "second wave" feminist sociolegal studies 3 and the divergent intellectual trends encompassing the field of legal semiotics 4 are notable here. Collectively, these works reflect the "classist, racist, sexist, and domineering arrangements" privileged in legal thought re-valorized and institutionalized through the training of the neophyte law student. 5 This juridical instruction is both a form of epistemological indoctrination and political socialization which, asZizintend to argue, is unnecessarily circumspect, incomplete, and oppressive. Missing from these critical reviews to date is any attempt to account for the intrapsychic and intersubjective processes at work which primordially shape and give meaning to legal discourse, 6 resulting in the encoded articulation of its unique logic in the instructional milieu. In other words, despite advances by Legal Realists and CLS scholars identifying the value-laden and non-neutral dimensions of law-talk, scant attention has thus far been directed toward an explication of those unconscious or pre-thematized forces which define the linguistic coordinates of the law fundamentally communicated to the novice student through his/her experience of legal education. 7 This essay will consider what psycho-semiotic processes are at work informing the construction of (juridical) discourse and knowledge constitutive of that reality known as legal education. Put another way, the aim here is to focus primarily on the linguistic coordinates themselves governing the student's method of indoctrination and socialization in the juridical sphere. One under-examined source for this semiotic investigation both germane to the topic and rich in insight includes the contributions of Jacques Lacan and selected ideas contained in his complex psychoanalytic theory. 8 Although Lacan never addressed the question of legal education or the construction of jurisprudence per se, a growing body of work continues to demonstrate the utility of Lacanian thought when exploring questions in law 9 and criminology. 1° While there are many differences among these studies, several recurring themes of import relevant to the dynamics of legal language and cognition are discernible: (1) the argot of lawspeak structures juridical thought in ways that are not neutral; (2) legal discourse signifies multiple and, at times, contradictory meanings; however, it is reduced to one anchored representation of reality (i.e., uni-accentuated desire) consistent with its own internal system of signs; and (3) because legal discourse privileges a specialized grammar (i.e., its own system of signs), it functions to semiotically cleanse or invalidate all other discursive codes, regarding them as outside the signifying sphere of the juridicolinguistic communicative market. 11 As a collective, these principles, assume the form of linguistic (and therefore social) oppression as manifested in an instructional milieu. In order to investigate the psycho-semiotic method of indoctrination and socialization for the law student, two pivotal features of Lacan's psychoanalytic topography will be studied: (1) the intrapsychic and intersubjective dimensions by which (juridical) discourse is conceived of as such and is expressed as articulated pedagogical desire; and (2) the discursive structure through which conventional (legal) thought finds embodiment as the only legitimated manifestation ofjouissance (Lacan's jouis-sens, j'ouis sens); that is, an enjoyment in sense or "I hear sense" in the law school classroom. The combinatory effect of these two Lacanian formulae quashes students' juridical plenitude (sense of completeness) such that they unconsciously experience jouissance as JO or as a lack ~as route) in their being, as Lacan designates, as opposed to J~. The former is accessible to woman who are not-all, and by implication, others who are disenfranchised (i.e., taw students). The latter is the upper limits of jouissance in a phallocentric Symbolic Order accessible to those who assume the male discursive subject position. The first concept entails a cursory review of the three overlapping and interdependent paired axes which functionally structure language resulting in semiotic production. These paired tropes include the: (a) paradigmatic-syntagmatic semiotic axis; (b) condensation-displacement semiotic axis; (c) metaphoric-metonymic semiotic axis. The second notion calls into question Lacan's Four Discourses, particularly the form which desire embodies in the discourse of the master versus the discourse of the hysteric. In the concluding section of the essay, speculation on the future of legal education and the development of a replacement instructional discourse will be considered. Intraphychic and Intersubjective Semiotic Production In order to conduct a critique of the "what happened" (the storytelling) within the instructional setting of a law school classroom, several summary statements regarding the discursive features of Lacan's schema on discourse construction are warranted. 12 In the Lacanian topography, the construction of reality emanates from the identification of phenomenal images found among the floating sea of signifiers inhabiting the primary process region (i.e., the unconscious or "Other"). These pre-thematized images or forms are saturated with the Other's accented metaphorical-metonymical signifying practices and receive temporary coherence, fleeting psychical clarity, in the act of naming (/e donner-horn). This "naming," at the most conscious level, occurs at the paradigmatidsyntagmatic level of speech production. Thus, following a release of initial, excitatory energy; energy in which one's visde de conscience is directed toward some pre-thematized sensory data, a view of reality (Lacan's notion of desire or d~sir) is articulated. 13 Here, desire is a reference to the combinatory effects of subjectivity and discourse (self and language) giving rise to a specialized grammar and circumscribed knowledge. 14 Within the juridic instructional milieu, the legal method (and its attendant features including, boundary definition; defining relevance; and case analysis) provides a narrowly established spatio-temporal frame of reference for semiosis and the articulation of one's singularly felt juridical desire (i.e., the subject'spas toute or lack in being). Indeed, the method's commitment to and esteem for the more positivistic and formatistic dimensions of lawspeak, assumes a reductionistic appreciation for law-finding and legal reasoning. The argot of the juridico-linguistic communicative market described here embodies a uniquely encoded form ofjouissance. This line of inquiry has been the basis for several postmodern gender critiques of the law, 15 its method, 16 and (crimino)legal education. 17 Collectively, these positions demonstrate how the law is phallocratically-conceived, subtending feminine (or alternative) ways of knowing. Accordingly, by generalizing this example, implicated in the (psycho-semiotic) grammar of juridical education is a limited accentuation of discourse consistent with uni-accentuated (malespeak) desire, dismissing or repressing the notion that students are situated within diverse, competitive, and, often, paradoxical semantic domains with their overlapping and interdependent effects. Following this provisional reading of Lacanian psychoanalytic semiotics to date, it is possible to assess the manner in which the three semiotic axes functionally structure discourse in the ossified legalistic paradigm as conveyed to the neophyte law student vis-a-vis the instructional milieu. The position taken is that the presentation and review of case material unfold much like the construction of any story. 18 Thus, much like any narrative, the educational aim is to encourage the audience (students) to recognize, indeed embrace, certain truth claims (i.e., the "official story") about the law. 19 The linguistic parameters of this story are always and already pre-arranged). Moreover, at the level of intrapsychic and intersubjective semiotic production, participants (primarily professors) must address a number of interrelated questions. By integrating the previous analysis we can identify several lines of inquiry that are non-reflexively considered. Paradigm. What legalistic jargon (words) speak(s) through me to support the thesis of today's lecture (i.e., the legal principles] under review? Put another way, in the context of that discourse which presents itself to me, what case references canZizcite, what issues of law canZizmention, what court opinions/rulings canZizquote, that buttress the lecture's stated thesis? Syntagm. What lines of analyses announce themselves to me making possible the construction of an argument in support of the lecture's thesis, simultaneously eliciting desired student responses and moving the discussion in the direction of clarifying the legal principle under consideration? Further, if students disagree with the lecture's thesis, what additional lines of thought (combination of words) speak through me enabling me to neutralize their positions and redirect their foci back to the lecture's original thesis? Metaphor. What pre-uttered images appear before me which, when spoken, unwittingly situate students into the story wherein they adopt the case analysis and regard its logic as compelling and true (i.e., a convincing narrative)? Metonymy. What lines of though announce themselves to me directing students to an element of the lecture deductively linking the component to the larger legal principle? For example: in a class on Legal Ethics the broader issue may be the meaning of zealous client advocacy in the context of ex parte communications. A constitutive element addressing this theme includes the conditions under which there is a duty to inform opposing counsel of said communication. The stated example assumes a metonymical function in that the whole (zealous representation) is understood through the function of one of its illustrative parts (duty to inform). Law, Legal Education, and Lacan's Discursive Structuring Mechanisms The interdependent and interactive effects of Lacanian semiosis are illustrative of the psycho-semiotic journey through which discourse finds embodiment as articulated desire. A constitutive feature of Lacanian intrapsychic and intersubjective semiosis is an explanation of how only certain expressions of desire (i.e., Foucauldian discursive formations) receive legitimation. For our purposes, then, the question is how does the argot of law-talk function as the only form of desire legitimated in the juridical instructional sphere? Recent studies exploring Lacanian psychoanalytics have done much in the way of illuminating the discursive schematizations which functionally structure language and thought. 2o These investigations provide accessible and useful commentary on what Lacan himself identified in his 1969-1970 seminar as the idea of the Four Discourses 21. Studies in the sociology of law 22 and in criminology/criminal justice 23 have applied the operation of the four discourses to selected topics within these respective disciplines. In the section that follows,Zizexamine the psycho-semiotic process, indeed the dynamic conflict, governing the operation of two of these formations; namely, the discourse of the master 24 versus the discourse of the hysteric.25 26 A. Legal Education and the Master Versus the Hysteric Discourses The construction of any Lacanian discourse is produced by a quarter turn in the basic structure. The discursive arrangement of the discourse of the master is depicted as follows: S1 .......... --)$2 $<-- .......... a In legal instruction there are master signifiers ("due process", "wrongfulness", "diminished capacity", "interest balancing", "intent", "duty of care", "products liability", etc.), assuming the position of agent and arousing certain effects in the receiver of the coded message (i.e., the law student). Recall the upper left hand position is the location of the sender of the message. These master signifiers while embodying the logic of legal discourse, symbolize an imaginary and fragmented construction of desire. The stated signifiers are imbued with ideological content and flied in with specialized meanings, representing a circumscribed knowledge consistent with the system-maintaining iterations of the juridical educational apparatus. In the classroom setting, a story presented (e.g., case law), unfolds constructed as a coherent narrative based upon a believable (plausible) sequence of eventsP The educator, situating him/herself and being inserted within the preconfigured coordinates of the legal sphere, relies upon the elements of the narrative (its actors, settings, motivations, injuries, etc.) and weaves together a logical chain of circumstances so that a "series of ideas is built up in the perception and consciousness...of the spectator (student), [resulting in] a whole image." 28 This composite image, however, is typically derived from contradictory, inconsistent and incomplete information. After all, there are at least two parties in the dispute presenting with incompatible interests. The ambiguity is intensified particularly where the claims of both disputants seem plausible. In such instances, the professor communicating meaning from within the coordinates of law-talk, creates an imaginary space, to be filled in by students, where legitimation of the master signifiers are imbued with juridical desire. This is the manifestation ofjouissance consistent with the unconscious force of law. 29 The selection of particular pieces of information constituting the facts, the sequencing of these elements, and the semantic domain used to communicate both will foster a metonymical system of expression constitutive of lawspeak. This (juridical) knowledge, passed on from teacher to student, represents a certain product. The absent material in the product (i.e., other or more bits of information, alternative readings of the facts, different sequences for both), although seeking affirmation in the law, is dedared non-juridical. This data represents that left-out knowledge or a, denied symbolization in the master signifiers-- signifier/signified anchorings affirming truths which are themselves provisional, positional, fragmented but which are, nonetheless, constitutive of the law. 3o The discursive schematization for the discourse of the hysteric 31 is represented as follows: $ ......... ---> S1 a ~---- ......... $2 In this formation the split or juridic subject (i.e., the novice student as $) is in the dominant position and endeavours to communicate through the juridical instructional milieu his/her being and desire. The student, however, in order to communicate meaning, in order to participate in "good" legal reasoning, must invoke those master signifiers symbolizing the coordinates of lawspeak. Here desire and being refer to the intra and interpsychic dynamics forming one's longings, frustrations, aspirations, alienations, despairs, repressions, ambitions: in short, one's existential constitution. Notwithstanding, the subject, as de-centered, is in search of meaning consistent with his/her desire and search for plenitude. The other (here the unwitting instructor or even the insurgent professor), relying upon the juridico-linguistic communicative market, attempts to incorporate, to embody, the divided (student) subject's jouissance in the instructional process. Temporarily, the inductee's lack or whole in being (manque d~tre) is filled. In this instance, the professor acknowledges the student's inability to express his/her desire within the coordinates of law-talk.

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