Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Assistant Professor of Philosophy Department, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran
Abstract
Introduction
The formation of the subject and its transformation in connection with the symbolic realm is aware of the reciprocal interaction between the individual and the social realm from the very beginning. Our basic question is whether Lacanian psychoanalysis and his concept of the unconscious subject were able to breathe new life into political theory and socio-political analysis. Lacan believed in a socio-political analysis based on psychoanalysis, even if this objective field cannot be reduced to traditional essentialist views of social objectivity. Moreover, the link between psychoanalysis and politics does not mean that we create a single meta-discourse by linking the two fields. Psychoanalysis has always been present in the political realm in different ways. The meaning of civilizational and social values and the nature of individual desire are in conflict with each other. Society is a restrictive process that makes the individual a victim of the collective, and there is no way to circumvent it, even under the freest or most permissive social conditions.
Materials & Methods
the research method used in this study is descriptive-analytical. First, Lacan's thoughts on the concepts of the subject, the lack, the other, the political and the relationships between them are examined and analyzed. We will then evaluate the possibility or impossibility of the political on the basis of various positions. The author has made an effort to gather important themes from written documents, library sources and reputable databases in order to analyze and compare them.
Discussion & Result
Psychoanalysis is pessimistic about idealistic approaches to politics, and even those that seem desirable at first sight are confronted with a kind of aporia and contradiction. From this perspective, a politics that has its origins in Lacanian psychoanalysis is not only concerned with maintaining the status quo, but always seeks to uncover the lack in the symbolic realm and, consequently, change and transformation. However, not all change can be permanent and stable, and the construction of any form of ideology is ultimately impossible. This politics not only challenges existing laws and norms, but also gives no space to major beliefs and political parties. In psychoanalysis, the return of lack is a revolutionary and transformative event that the symbolic realm deals with on various levels. On the other hand, each symbolic realm has a center of gravity that it seeks to preserve and maintain in order to avoid its own collapse. Since the elimination of the real element is necessary, psychoanalysis adapts to the inevitability of lack. Therefore, Lacanian politics aims to expose violence, elimination and lack, rather than offering a positive and definitive solution to it.
Conclusion
There are moments in psychoanalysis that play an important role in analysing political and social phenomena. Identifying the hidden layers of power and violence, criticising ideology and exposing the fundamental flaw within the symbolic order can be seen as the most important task of the political. The central insight of psychoanalysis in the social and political realm lies in its focus on the lack within the symbolic order and the big Other. Psychoanalysis has a stabilising function insofar as it assigns a fixed purpose and definition to the subject, the Other and the lack inherent in them; at the same time, it exposes the contradictions and obstacles within subjectivity and the symbolic order. Psychoanalysis is fundamentally political and capable of intervening directly in the political realm. However, this intervention is not aimed at advancing positive ideologies (such as liberalism or feminism); but identifies the elements that are excluded in the formation of ideology. The acceptance of the lack means the emergence of political and progressive political transformations — transformations that idealist approaches have previously prevented by preventing the uncovering of such hidden layers within political identities.
Keywords
References
- Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Trans. Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971. ["ISA"]
- Bellamy, Elizabeth J (1993), Discourses of Impossibility: Can Psychoanalysis Be Political? In Diacritics, vol 23, No 1. pp 23-38.
- Butler, J. (1997) The Psychic Life of Power, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Chaitan, G. (1996) Rhetoric and Culture in Lacan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Derrida, J. (1995) ‘For the Love of Lacan’ in Cardozo Law Review, 16, 3 4:699–728.
- Dolan, Frederick (2000) Review of Yannis Stavrakakis, Lacan and the Political Philosophy in Review. Vol. 20, no. 4, Aug. 2000, pp. 293-4.
- Fink, B. (1995). The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance. New Jersey: Princeton University Press
- Freud, S. (1930) Civilization and its Discontents. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XXI (1927-1931): The Future of an Illusion, Civilization and its Discontents, and Other Works, 57-146.
- Freud, S. (1908) ‘Civilized’ Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume IX (1906- 1908): Jensen's ‘Gradiva’ and Other Works, 177-204.
- Fryer, D. (2004) The Intervention of the Other: Ethical Subjectivity in Levinas & Lacan. Other Press, New York.
- Frosh, Stephen (2018) Psychoanalysis, Politics and Society: What Remains Radical in Psychoanalysis? In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis Richard Gipps and Michael Lacewing (ed.). p.p. 667–686.
- Homer, Sean (2013). Jacques Lacan. Translated by Mohammad Ali Jafari & Mohammad Ebrahim Taheri. Tehran: Qoqnoos Publications. [In Persian]
- Johanssen, Jacob (2021) review of Routledge handbook of psychoanalytic political theory Yannis Stavrakakis (ed) Routledge handbook, London, 464 pages.
- Lacoue-Labarthe, P. and J.-L. Nancy (1992) The Title of the Letter, trans. with introduction Fr. Raffoul and D. Pettigrew, Albany: SUNY Press.
- Lacan, J. (1977) The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, Miller, J.-A. (ed.), trans. A. Sheridan, London: Penguin.
- Lacan, Jacques (1988) The Seminar. Book I. Freud’s Papers on Technique, 1953–4, Jacques-Alain Miller (ed.), trans. with notes John Forrester, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Lacan, J. (1973) The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.
- Karimi & Asghari (2021). "The Position of the Other in Deconstructing Subjectivity and Ethics: Lacan and Levinas." Zanjan Philosophical Reflections, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 131-162. https://doi.org/10.30470/phm.2021.141729.1917. [In Persian]
- Karimi & Binandeh (2021). "Žižek’s Hegelian-Lacanian Reading of the Subject." Tabriz Philosophical Researches, Vol. 15, No. 35, pp. 248-267. https://doi.org/10.22034/jpiut.2020.42015.2675. [In Persian]
- McMillan, Chris (2016) Symptomatic Readings: Zizekian theory as a discursive strategy in International Journal of Žižek Studies. Vol 2.1 .
- Robinson, A. (2004) The Politics of Lack. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 6, 259-269.
- Stavrakakis, Yannis (2015). Lacan and the Political. Translated by Mohammad Ali Jafari. Tehran: Qoqnoos Publications. [In Persian]
- Zaretsky, E. (2015) Political Freud. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Zizek, S. (1993). Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel and the Critique of Ideology. Durham: Duke University Press
- Tutt, Danial (2018), Lacan And The Politics Of Psychoanalysis – An Interview With Thomas Svolos in Critical Theory and Psychoanalysis.
- Stavrakakis, Y. (2007) Lacan and the Political: Thinking the Political. Routledge Press, London.
- Pound, M. (2008) ‘The Assumption of Desire: Kierkegaard, Lacan, and the Trauma of the Eucharist.’ Journal of Cultural and Religious Theory. (Winter 2008), Vol. 9.
- Zaretsky, E. (2015) Political Freud. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Žižek, S. (1993) Tarrying with the Negative, Durham: Duke University Press.
- Žižek, Slavoj (2011). The Objectivity of Ideology. Translated by Ali Behrouzi. Tehran: Tarh-e No Publications. [In Persian]
)