Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan

Presenter Ted Lechman for the Greater Rochester [Bertrand] Russell Set June 9, 2011 Writers and Books, Rochester, NY Further References and Suggested Readings available upon request eastwood132@yahoo.com . Desire, a function central to all human experience, is the desire for nothing nameable. And at the same time this desire lies at the origin of every variety of animation. If being were only what it is, there wouldnt even be room to talk about it. Being comes into existence as an exact function of this lack. Being attains a sense of self in relation to being as a function of this lack, in the experience of desire. Lacan, Seminar II, p.223 224 (Edited by Jacques-Alain Miller, WW Norton:1991).
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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan: Outline

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Rationale Structuralism Lacan versus Ego Psychology The Return to Freud The Mirror Stage of Development The RIS Matheme The Divided Subject, Jouissance and petit Objet a Lacans Theory of Discourse The Master Discourse The Uniersity or Obsessives Discourse The Analysts Discourse The Hysteric Discourse

Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan: Rationale

"...the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology. ... The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. ... As yet there is only one country which has succeeded in creating this politicians paradise. Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society, 1960.

"as soon as we renounce fiction and illusion, we lose reality itself; the moment we subtract fictions from reality, reality itself loses its discursivelogical consistency." "Cinema is the ultimate pervert art. It doesn't give you what you desire - it tells you how to desire." Slavoj iek (Lacanian Psychoanalyst/ Philosopher)

Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan: Structuralism

Michel Foucault, Jacque Lacan, Claude Levi-Strauss, Roland Barthes

Structuralism argues that a specific domain of culture may be understood by means of a structuremodeled on languagethat is distinct both from the organizations of reality and those of ideas or the imaginationthe "third order". Four ideas are common to the various forms of structuralism. a structure determines the position of each element of a whole. every system has a structure. structural laws deal with co-existence rather than change. structures are the "real things" that lie beneath the surface or the appearance of meaning.

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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan: Lacan versus Ego Psychology

Ego Psychology

originated with Anna Freuds work on Defense Mechanisms Popularized in the US by Heinz Hartmann Focus on correction of Automatic thought patterns (CBT) to facilitate adaptation migr Psychoanalystss Transference of their problem of cultural adaptation to 50s American society.

Lacan

Focus on ego and adaptation as central betrayal of Freudian subject of the Unconscious. Return to Freuds structuralism of ego/id/superego from 1920s Return to the Pleasure Principle.

Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan: Mirror Stage of Development

Human infants pass through a stage in which an external image of the body (reflected in a mirror, or represented to the infant through the mother or primary caregiver) produces a psychic response that gives rise to the mental representation of an "I". The infant identifies with the image, which serves as a gestalt of the infant's emerging perceptions of selfhood, but because the image of a unified body does not correspond with the underdeveloped infant's physical vulnerability and weakness, this imago is established as an Ideal-I toward which the subject will perpetually strive throughout his or her life. For Lacan, the mirror stage establishes the ego as fundamentally dependent upon external objects, on an other. As the so-called "individual" matures and enters into social relations through language, this "other" will be elaborated within social and linguistic frameworks that will give each subject's personality (and his or her neuroses and other psychic disturbances) its particular characteristics.

Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan: Mirror Stage of Development

Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan: Lacans R-I-S Matheme

In Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality, the preconscious mind is part of the conscious mind and includes our memory. These memories are not conscious, but we can retrieve them to conscious awareness at any time.

Freudian Structure of Superego/Ego/Id relative to Conscious/Preconscious/Unconscious.

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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan: Lacans R-I-S Matheme

Language, Law, Culture, Science, the necessary, the analytic The Ego, Our Story/Narrative Truth-Falsehood, Contradiction, Paradox, Sin, Heresy, Ritual Uncleanliness Deceit, Simulation, Lying, Shame, Humiliation

The Symbolic

The Imaginary

The Real

That which is outside of symbolization, Terror, Fear, inherent inadequacies-gaps Uncertainty, Death in systems, the contingent, the Infinite

RIS are not static, separable components but modes of being and discourse (similar to pitch, yaw and roll). Each of the R-I-S has R-I-S modalities as well.
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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan:

Lacans R-I-S Matheme

The Real, the Imaginary and the Symbolic (RIS).

Imaginary I

S(A)

PHI

S Symbolic

R
a Unattainable Object of Desire Real
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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan:

Lacans Theory of Discourse

Discourse is the Framework and the Production of all speech acts. It defines and is defined by the social structure of the narrative.

There are Four Lacanian Discourses:

Master-Slave Discourse (similar to Hegel, Kojeve M-S Dialectic) University Discourse (aka Obsessives Discourse) Analysts Discourse Hysterics Discourse

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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan:

Lacans Theory of Discourse

Positions in the Discourse Structure

Agent

Other

(social)

Truth

Production

(narrative)

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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan:

Lacans Theory of Discourse

Positions in the Discourse Structure

Discourse Structure and Positions defines Social - Meaning

Agent Truth

Other Production

Conscious Unconscious

Agent

Other

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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan:

Lacans Theory of Discourse

Actors in the Discourse Structure

S1

S2

Divided Subject

S1
S2 a

Master Signifier
Knowledge
(Unattainable) Object of Desire ( aka Objet petit a)

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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan:

Lacans Theory of Discourse

Actors in the Discourse Structure $ - The Divided Subject

The Subject is Divided by Language

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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan:

Lacans Theory of Discourse Actors in the Discourse Structure S1 -> S2 The Master Signifier and Knowledge

S1

S2

The Signifier represents the Subject for other Signifiers. The S1 represents $ for S2. Challenges to S1 represent attack upon $.

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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan:

Lacans Theory of Discourse Actors in the Discourse Structure a The Unobtainable Object of Desire (Objet petit a)

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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan:

Lacans Theory of Discourse The 4 Discourses Master, University, Analyst and Hysteric
Master-Slave Discourse University/Obsessive Discourse

S1 $

S2 a

S2 S1

a $

Hysterics Discourse

Analysts Discourse

$ a

S1 S2

a S2

$ S1
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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan:

Lacans Theory of Discourse The Master Discourse

Master-Slave Discourse

S1 $

S2

S1 does not admit lack or desire Slave produces satisfaction of Masters unconscious desire Eventually the accumulation of knowledge, S2, on the part of the slave tips the balance in his favor resulting in the Rule of the Knowledgeable Slave i.e. University DIscourse

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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan:

Lacans Theory of Discourse The University Discourse

University/Obsessive Discourse

Universities as places Ritualized seduction by knowledge, not as place of joint search for the truth of human condition University teacher/ scientist/expert/bureaucrat another form of master. University masters position is based on belief of Absolute or total knowledge, S1.

S2 S1

a $

Ex: enlightened versus authoritarian father you will go to grandmas house and like it.

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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan:

Lacans Theory of Discourse The Analysts Discourse
Analysis allows obsessional to restructure their obsession or S1 Analysand is divided/lacking subject $ who turns to Analyst through transference as love object invested by the libido. Primary focus of analysand is to capture that which the analyst comes to represent. This is NOT the final, most desirable discourse permutation the Hysterical discourse is analysis needs to terminate.
Analysts Discourse

a S2

$ S1
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Perverts Guide to Jacques Lacan:

Lacans Theory of Discourse The Hysterics Discourse

Hysteric represents the desirable end of analysis the questioning subject in a state of permanent uncertainty and thus flexibility in configuring their unconscious.
The hysteric seeks to understand - S2 - the expressed and unexpressed masternarratives they live under S1 which represents the subject themselves. The hysteric seeks to see through the veil of illusion or falsity spawned by the discourse of the Master or the University. For the Hysteric the truth of ones subjectivity is ones Jouissance.

$ a

S1 S2
Hysterics Discourse

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