Psychoanalysis k – Sam Franz – rks seniors Cover Letter
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Psychoanalysis K - Sam - Wake 2016 RKS
Psychoanalysis K – Sam Franz – RKS SeniorsCover LetterPsychoanalysis is doubtless a complex argument, and thus the crucial precondition for reading this file is an understanding of the theory behind it. Given the structure of debate, nobody reads cards that explain the theory of psychoanalysis, so, I’ll try to elucidate the important parts of the argument below. Lacanian psychoanalysis (the intellectual strain that this argument relies on) deals with the structure of language and the way that it implicates our actions. Chris Lundberg begins Lacan in Public with the argument that the study of rhetoric has fallen prey to an over-focus on the imaginary elements of rhetoric (in the Lacanian sense) at the expense of an analysis of the systematic and network-like structure of language, or, in Lacanian terms, the Symbolic. For Lacan, the Symbolic is the structure of language itself; it includes the totality of language and all of the signs that constitute it. The imaginary is closely linked to the Aristotelian definition of rhetoric: it is the meaning and affect that we invest in certain connections to make them durable. The real, then, is the intrusion of the the-world-in-itself, or the world pre-signification, into reality. A succinct example of the Real, explained in Calum Matheson’s Desired Ground Zeroes, is the nuclear Bomb and the effect it has on its spectators. After the explosion of the Bomb most couldn’t explain what they had seen. This, in the simplest terms, is the intrusion of the Real into our smooth-functioning reality constituted by language. Although the three orders are useful, Lacan’s theory of the subject is the central piece of the argument. The individual pre-language is constituted by continuity – they are a collection of drives that has no need to differentiate themselves from the world around them. Lacan’s mirror stage implicates this un-bounded mass. For Lundberg “The experience of being a subject is the experience of identifying with an image of one’s self that is not naturally given but rather given by a specific location within the Symbolic order and a specific set of historical and material factors that articulate a notion of identity that a subject assumes or, better yet, inhabits. But this assumption or inhabiting of a frame for identity is never completely effective, nor is the subject ever fully able to exorcise the gap that constitutes it because this gap between the subject and the Symbolic is the precondition for the subject’s emergence. Thus, the subject is a placeholder for the movement of tropes that constitutes it.” Since one identifies with a signifier that can never completely constitute the lived experience of the subject, they are lacking. For Lacan, “the mirror stage . . . manufactures for the subject . . . the armor of an alienating identity.” The identity of the subject, the signifiers that describe it, are not unique to the individual in any way. Thus, the loss that the subject experiences upon the displacement into the symbolic (language) becomes the lost object, or objet petit a. Desire, then, is the constant search for a loss that cannot be filled – a loss that is the precondition for the subject itself. In our search for the lost object, we enjoy our subjectivity. Against the chaotic nature of the Real outside of language, we exercise control over that which we can. Matheson describes this set of actions using Freud’s fort-da example, “The fort-da game described by Freud and explained here in the first two chapters is an important tool for unpacking this dynamic because it posits a sense of control over presence and absence as the condition for a subject’s enjoyment. Fort-da refers to the game in which a child makes an object disappear and reappear in succession, simulating her or his mother’s coming and going and the possibility of her eventual disappearance. Enjoyment comes from the subject’s control over these states of presence and absence, a small example of imposing order in a world of seeming chaos.” The death drive, contrary to popular belief, is not a desire for death, but instead the repetition of an action to exercise control over the chaotic nature of the world. Although the above synopsis was extremely brief, it should provide a decent grounding for reading the evidence in this file. While cutting this file, I read five books to gain an understanding of the theoretical basis of psychoanalysis: Lacan in Public by Christian Lundberg, Enjoying What We Don’t Have by Todd McGowan, The Politics of Subjectivity in Foreign Discourses by Ty Solomon, Lacan and the Political by Yannis Stavrakakis, and, finally, Desired Ground Zeroes by Calum Matheson. I would recommend Lacan in Public, if one was interested in learning more. Given the time constraints of camp, this file contains some weaknesses. This is a good starting point for the year, and it contains all the necessary components required to begin reading this argument. If one were to consider reading this more during the year, I would recommend more research regarding link arguments. Although this contains all of the essentials, there is always more research to be done, and more to read. Thanks,
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