Difference between revisions of "Jouissance"

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''[[Jouissance]]'' is a [[French]] term.
 
  
The [[French]] ''[[jouissance]]'' means approximately ''[[enjoyment]]'', but it has a sexual connotation (i.e. 'orgasm') lacking in the [[English]] word '[[enjoyment]]', and is therefore left untranslated in most [[English]] editions of [[Lacan]].
 
 
The [[French]] noun means '[[enjoyment]]' in both the sense of [[pleasure]] and in the sense in which one speaks of the [[enjoyment]] of [[right]]s and privileges.
 
 
It is commonly treated as a [[French]] word and italicized accordingly.
 
 
''[[Jouissance]]'' is always used in the singular and is always accompanied by the singular definite article.
 
 
==Jacques Lacan and ''Jouissance''==
 
 
In <i>[[Civilization and Its Discontents]]</i> (1930), [[Freud]] describes a contradiction inherent in the concept of [[pleasure]].
 
 
<blockquote>This endeavor [of striving for [[happiness]]] has two sides... It aims, on the one hand, at an [[absence]] of [[pain]] and [[unpleasure]], and, on the other, at the experiencing of strong [[feeling]]s of [[pleasure]]... The task of avoiding [[suffering]] pushes that of obtaining [[pleasure]] into the background.<ref>1930, pp. 76-77</ref></blockquote>
 
 
The term was already present in [[Freud]], but [[Lacan]] developed it as a concept.
 
 
[[Lacan]] argues that the two aspects of [[pleasure]] were irreconcilable.
 
 
The [[pleasure principle]] blocks the path to ''[[jouissance]]''.
 
 
<blockquote>Who is there who in the name of [[pleasure]] doesn't start to weaken when the first half-serious is taken step toward [[jouissance]]?<ref>1959-1960/1992, p. 185</ref></blockquote>
 
 
<blockquote>"(Even an [[animal]]) has an economy: it acts so as to produce the very least possible [[jouissance]]. That's what we call the [[pleasure principle]]."<ref>1969-70/1991, p. 88</ref></blockquote>
 
 
''[[Jouissance]]'' is involved when the [[pleasure principle]] yields not necessarily to [[pain]], but to un[[pleasure]].
 
 
==Jacques Lacan==
 
 
 
[[Lacan]] begins to use the term [[jouissance]] in his seminars of 1953-4 where it refers to [[Kojeve]]'s version of the [[master]]-[[slave]] [[dialectic]], in which the work of the [[slave]] provides [[object]]s for the [[master]]'s [[enjoyment]].
 
 
The term's [[meaning]] gradually shifts and acquires more sexual connotations from the early 1960s onwards.
 
 
The most sustained disucssion will be found in the seminar of 1969-70.
 
 
 
==''Jouissance'' versus Pleasure==
 
 
[[Lacan]] develops an opposition between ''[[jouissance]]'' ('[[enjoyment]]') and ''[[plaisir]]'' ('[[pleasure]]').
 
 
 
For Barthes ''plaisir'' is, "a pleasure...linked to cultural enjoyment and identity, to the cultural enjoyment of identity, to a homogenising movement of the ego."<ref>(1977, p.9)</ref>
 
 
As [[Richard Middleton]] (1990, p.261) puts it, "''Plaisir'' results, then, from the operation of the structures of signification through which the subject knows himself or herself; ''jouissance'' fractures these structures."
 
 
==''Jouissance'' versus Pleasure==
 
It evokes an eroticizes death drive and a degree of intensity which takes the subject ebyond the pleasure principle.
 
 
Pleasure is described as an obstacle to jouissance in that is always leads to a reduction in tension and to a return to homeostatis, or a dynamically stable state.
 
 
Jouissance in constrast takes the subject to that extreme point where the erotic borders upon death.
 
 
 
===Pleasure Principle===
 
 
The [[pleasure principle]] functions as a [[limit]] to [[enjoyment]].
 
 
The [[pleasure principle]] is a [[law]] which commands the [[subject]] to "enjoy as little as possible."<ref>[[Lacan, Jacques]].</ref>
 
 
The [[prohibition]] on ''[[jouissance]]''
 
 
The [[symbolic]] [[prohibition]] of [[enjoyment]]
 
 
It is inherent in the [[symbolic]] [[structure]] of [[language]].
 
 
"''[[Jouissance]]'' is forbidden to him who speaks, as such."<ref>{{E}} p.319</ref>
 
 
The [[subject]], in order to gain entry to the [[symbolic]] [[order]], must renounce ''[[jouissance]]'' (in the [[castration complex]]).
 
 
In other words, the [[subject]] must give up any attempt to be the [[imaginary]] [[phallus]] for the [[mother]].
 
 
The [[symbolic]] [[prohibition]] of [[enjoyment]] in the [[Oedipus complex]] (the [[incest]] [[taboo]]) is the [[prohibition]] of something which is already [[impossible]].
 
 
Its function is to sustain the [[neurotic]] [[illusion]] that [[enjoyment]] would be attainable if it were not forbidden.
 
 
===Prohibition and Desire===
 
The [[prohibition]] gives rise to the [[desire]] to [[transgress]] it.
 
 
''[[Jouissance]]'' is fundamentally [[transgressive]].
 
 
==''Jouissance'' and the Law==
 
 
This situates ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ in another field and simultaneously introduces the question of [[religion]], moral precepts, and the [[law]].
 
In <i>[[The Ethics of Psychoanalysis]]</i>, [[Lacan]] based ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ on the [[law]].
 
 
If ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ consists in breaking the barrier of the [[pleasure principle]], if it can only be attained through a [[transgression]], then only a [[prohibition]] opens the path toward it.
 
 
 
===Beyond the Pleasure Principle===
 
 
The [[subject]] can [[trangress]] the [[prohibition]]s on [[enjoyment]] (imposed by the [[pleasure principle]]) by going "[[beyond the pleasure principle."
 
 
===Pleasure and Pain===
 
 
However, the result of transgressing the pleasure principle is not more pleasure, but pain, since there is only a certainamount of pleasure that the subject can bear.
 
 
Beyond this limit, pleasure becomes pain, and this ‘painful pleasure’ is what [[Lacan]] calls ‘’jouissance’’: ‘’’jouissance’’ is suffering.”<ref>S7 184</ref>
 
 
The term ‘’jouissance thus nicely expresses the paradoxical satisfaction that the subject derives from his symptom, or, to put it another way, the suffering that he derives from his own satisfaction.
 
 
In <i>[[Beyond the Pleasure Principle]]</i>, [[Freud]] had already noted that "the most painful experiences . . . can yet be felt . . . as highly enjoyable.”<ref>1920, p. 17</ref>
 
 
It is true that once we start down the path of ''[[jouissance]] '', we do not know where it will lead: "It starts with a tickle and ends up bursting into flames" (Lacan, 1991, p. 83).
 
 
==''Jouissance'' and the Death-Drive==
 
 
The [[subject]] has a constant [[desire]] to break through, to transgress the [[pleasure principle]].
 
 
The [[death drive]] is that constant [[desire]] of the [[subject]] to break through the [[pleasure principle]] towards the [[Thing]] and excess [[enjoyment]] (''[[jouissance]]'').
 
 
[[Lacan]] states that ''[[jouissance]]'' is "the path towards [[death]]."<ref>{{S17}} p.17</ref>
 
 
Insofar as the drives are attempts to break through the pleasure principle in search of ‘’jouissance,’’ every drive is a death drive.
 
 
 
==Phallic ''Jouissance''==
 
There are similarities between [[Lacan]]'s concept of ''[[jouissance]] and [[Freud]]'s concept of the [[libido]].
 
 
[[Freud]] asserted that there is only one [[libido]], which is [[masculine]].
 
 
[[Lacan]] states that ''[[jouissance]]'' is essentially [[phallic]].
 
 
<blockquote>"''[[Jouissance]]'', insofar as it is [[sexual]], is [[phallic]], which means that it does not relate to the [[Other]] as such."<ref>{{S20}} p.58</ref></blockquote>
 
 
 
==Feminine ''Jouissance''==
 
 
In 1973, [[Lacan]] states that there is a [[feminine]] ''[[jouissance]]''
 
 
[[Feminine]] ''[[jouissance]]'' is a "[[supplement]]ary ''[[jouissance]]'', which is beyond the [[phallus]], a ''[[jouissance]]'' of the [[Other]].<ref>{{S20}} p.58, 69.</ref>
 
 
[[Feminine]] ''[[jouissance]]'' is ineffable.
 
 
==Phallic versus Feminine ''Jouissance''==
 
In order to differentiate between these two forms of jouissance, [[Lacan]] introduces different algebraic symbols for each; Jd designates phallic jouissance, whereas JA designates the ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ of the Other.
 
 
==''Jouissance'' and Repetition==
 
 
[[Lacan]] made a connection between ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ and [[repetition]].
 
 
(He drew support for his argument from the [[hysteria|hysterical]] [[symptom]] of [[repetition]].)
 
 
[[Lacan]] defines [[repetition]] as a [[trace]], a kind of [[writing]], that commemorates "an irruption of jouissance."<ref>1991, p. 89</ref>
 
 
 
==Need and Drive==
 
 
[[Lacan]] posits a basic opposition between [[need]] and [[drive]].
 
 
<blockquote>"And if the social bond is established by renouncing the [[satisfaction]] of the [[drive]], it is because this [[satisfaction]] implies the [[enjoyment]] — in the juridical sense of the term — of [[object]]s that could either belong to [[other]]s or deprive them of their [[jouissance]]."</blockquote>
 
 
 
==''Jouissance'' and Drive==
 
 
In <i>[[The Ethics of Psychoanalysis]]</i>, [[Lacan]] emphasized that [[Freud]] posed the question of ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ in terms of [[drive]].
 
 
 
 
==''Jouissance'' and the Superego==
 
 
The [[energy]] of the [[superego]] derives from the [[libido]] of this [[satisfaction|unsatisfied]] [[drive]]; the more the [[subject]] fails to feel ''[[jouissance]]'', the more libido]] there is to feed the [[superego]], and the more the [[superego]] will [[demand]] new [[renunciation]]s.
 
 
[[Lacan]] believed that in <i>[[Civilization and Its Discontents]]</i>, [[Freud]] was stating that "everything that is transferred from ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ to [[prohibition]] gives rise to the increasing strengthening of prohibition."<ref>Lacan, 1992, p. 176</ref>
 
 
Thus the [[guilt]] triggered by [[masturbation]] can be understood as an increase of [[libido]] in the [[superego]], brought about by a short circuit in [[masturbation]] that achieves only a brief and stifled [[satisfaction]] instead of [[jouissance]].
 
 
What is involved here is not the [[satisfaction]] of need, but of the [[drive]].
 
 
==Graph of Desire==
 
 
[[Lacan]] inscribes ''[[jouissance]]'' in the [[topography]] of the [[graph of desire]].<ref>{{E}} "[[The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire]]."</ref>
 
 
 
At the upper level of the graph, ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ is indicated by signifying lack in the Other, S(A̷).
 
 
This is phallic jouissance, which is related to castration as lack.
 
 
Traditionally, the erectile organ, the phallus, represents the object of jouissance, not so much by itself, but rather as the missing portion of a desired image.
 
 
Phallic ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ is inscribed in the diagram at the level of a vector that starts out from S(A̷), the Other's lack, and goes toward (S̷ ◇ D), the drive as articulated by the subject and the demand of the Other.
 
 
Thus ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ is "of the Other" and at the same time operates on the level of the drive.
 
 
Recognizing the Other's lack produces a fantasy in the subject's unconscious.
 
 
In this fantasy, the object represents what the subject imagines that the Other is deprived of.
 
 
 
 
In everyday life, the mother, as primordial Other, is prohibited from making up for her lack with her child.
 
 
Thus the Other remains prohibited. In his diagram, [[Lacan]] located ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ at the place of the barred Other, S(A̷) this is also where [[Lacan]] inscribed the superego that orders the subject to enjoy, "Jouis!"
 
 
To this command, the subject can only respond, "J'ouis!" ("I hear!"), for such ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ is structurally prohibited. [[Lacan]] repeated that while the superego prohibits and punishes, it also requires that the subject experience jouissance.
 
 
For Lacan, the requirement to enjoy is directly related to a taboo.
 
 
But what is prohibited, what must remain unsatisfied, is only the subject's jouissance.
 
 
Giving the Other an experience of ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ does not seem to be prohibited.
 
 
 
 
The Other is barred in the diagram only by being marked by the loss of object <i>a</i>.
 
 
Thus if a subject assumes the position of the Other's missing object and if this can make the Other whole, then "It would enjoy," as [[Lacan]] said (2002, p. 311).
 
 
He thus introduced a ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ outside the phallic order, a mystic jouissance, which he defined as a nonphallic, feminine ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ (1998).
 
 
For being not whole, a woman "has a supplementary ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ compared to what the phallic function designates by way of jouissance. . . . Y]ou need but go to Rome and see the statue by [Gianlorenzo] Bernini [the Ecstasy of St. Teresa] to immediately understand that she's coming. There's no doubt about it" (1998, pp. 73, 76).
 
 
 
 
But what did [[Lacan]] mean when he said that a woman, for being "not whole," was capable of a supplementary, nonphallic jouissance? With the "formulas of sexuation," he proposed dividing subjects not according to their biological sex, but according to their relation to the phallus.
 
 
On the masculine side would be those subjects who take object <i>a</i> as the cause of their desire and depend upon their phallic nature to attain it.
 
 
Subjects on the feminine side have one eye on the phallus and one eye on the ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ of the Other, S(A̷).
 
 
The male or female mystic—a designation independent of biological sex—is situated on the feminine side. Supplementary jouissance, strictly speaking, is feminine.
 
 
But to attain it, the subject must stop looking both ways—toward phallic ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ and ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ of the Other—and become devoted only to the latter. Such an experience was attained by St. John of the Cross, for example, who was familiar with a mystical ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ "outside sex," and thus beyond the mark of difference and beyond lack.
 
 
The moment of ecstasy arrives when the mystic, entirely desubjectified and merged with object <i>a</i> of the Other's desire, becomes one with the Other, who in turn no longer lacks.
 
 
The result is that to represent the Other's jouissance, "A" is rewritten as unbarred, S(A).
 
 
In <i>Civilization and Its Discontents</i>, [[Freud]] referred to the "oceanic feeling" of being at one with the greater Whole.
 
 
Such is the feeling of mysticism, and also of trances and ecstasy.
 
 
 
==Religion==
 
 
Lacan's later comments on jouissance, and in aparticular his speculations as to the existence of a specifically femlae jouissance, are greatly influenced by Bataille's explorations of the relationship between eroticism , death and mysticism.
 
 
Significantly, both the first edition of Bataill'e sEroticism (1957) and the twntieth volume of Lacan's smeinar (1975) are illustrated with reproductions of Bernini's representation of St Teresa, which depicts the saint at the moment of his 'transverbation' or penetation by the word of God.
 
 
By way of commentary Lacan remarks: "She's coming, no doubt about it."
 
He goes on to speculate that St Teresa ies experiencing a female jouissance that goes beyond the phallus.
 
 
This, he argues, is a jouissance that women can experience without being bale to speak of it.
 
 
The argument overlooks that fac tthat the historical St Teresa has a great deal to say about her experience.
 
 
Whereas [[Freud]] discussed the dark relationship between mysticism and suffering with great hesitation, [[Lacan]] spoke of them more positively by remarking that on the cultural level, adoration of Christ suffering on the cross naturally sustains jouissance.
 
 
If certain mystics directly experience ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ by looking at the Other's face—by looking at the face of God—others can attain it only by allowing the ever so broken body of Christ on Calvary to sustain it.
 
 
They partake of a vicarious ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ from Christ's mutilated body offered up to God.
 
 
Commenting on Catholicism, [[Lacan]] wrote, "That doctrine speaks only of the incarnation of God in a body, and assumes that the passion suffered in that person constituted another person's jouissance" (1998, p. 113)
 
 
As for the "[[other]]," he is already implicated in [[Freud]]'s analysis of [[sadism]]: when we inflict [[pain]] on others, "we [[enjoy]] by [[identifying]] with the [[suffering]] [[object]]."
 
 
From his reading of <i>[[Civilization and Its Discontents]]</i>, [[Lacan]] concluded, "[[Jouissance]] is [[evil]] . . . because it involves [[suffering]] for my [[neighbor]]."<ref>1992, p. 184</ref>
 
 
Moreover, he noted that [[love]] of one's [[neighbor]] seemed absurd to [[Freud]].
 
 
<blockquote>Each time that this [[Christian]] ideal is stated, "we see evoked the [[presence]] of that fundamental [[evil]] which dwells within this [[neighbor]]. But if that is the case, then it also dwells within me. And what is more of a [[neighbor]] to me than this heart within which is that of my ‘‘[[jouissance]]’’ and which I don't dare go near?”<ref>Lacan, 1992, p. 186</ref></blockquote>
 
 
 
 
==Theory==
 
Something that gives the [[subject]] a way out of its [[normative]] subjectivity through [[transcendent]] [[Bliss (feeling)|bliss]] whether that bliss or [[orgasmic]] [[rapture]] be found in [[text]]s, [[film]]s, works of [[art]] or [[sexual]] spheres; [[excess]] as opposed to [[utility]].
 
 
It is a popular term in [[postmodernism]] and [[queer theory]] used by [[Roland Barthes]], [[Jacques Lacan]], [[Judith Butler]], and others.
 
 
‘‘[[Jouissance]]’’ as intrinsically self-shattering, disruptive of a 'coherent [[self]]'.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
==Miscellaneous==
 
Jouissance: A notion of profound significance in French postmodern theory.
 
 
As developed by Jacques Lacan, jouissance (delight, hope, bliss) refers to that enjoyment which is beyond; that excess or fulfillment which is beyond.
 
 
Its application to postmodern theory signals how, through discourse, we try and fail to convey our needs, hopes, despairs, longings, aspirations; in short, our desire.
 
 
However, words and phrases (whether spoken or written) are incomplete.
 
 
They do not ensure us of our jouissance. We struggle to ensure that our desire finds embodiment in discourse, through intersubjective communication and through the language of our behavior and life cycles.
 
 
We seek and search; sometimes in pro-social ways; sometimes in purely private ways; sometimes in ways which exploit and oppress others. See Desire, Discourse, four.
 
 
A French word which derives from the verb jouir meaning to have pleasure in, to enjoy, to appreciate, to savour; with a secondary meaning, as in English, of having rights and pleasures in the use of, as in the phrases .she enjoyed good health., .she enjoyed a considerable fortune., and .all citizens enjoy the right of freedom of expression.. The derived noun, jouissance, has three current meanings in French: it signifies an extreme or deep pleasure; it signifies sexual orgasm; and in law, it signifies having the right to use something, as in the phrase avoir la jouissance de quelquechose. The word becomes relevant to cultural and literary studies through its usage by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan to signify the condition or bliss, arrival, merging with the other, which can be associated with orgasm but also the obtention of any particularly desired object or condition - for the explorer, arriving at the North Pole perhaps. Jouissance, for Lacan, is not a purely pleasurable experience but arises through augmenting sensation to a point of discomfort (as in the sexual act, where the cry of passion is at times indistinguishable from the cry of pain), or as in running a marathon. Such experiences, as Freud recognised in his essay .Beyond the Pleasure Principle. (1920), seem to come close to death, and in Freud.s theory imply an urge to regress to the inorganic state that preceded life. For Lacan, on the other hand, jouissance seems to imply a desire to abolish the condition of lack (la manque) to which we are condemned by our acceptance of the signs of the symbolic order in place of the Real.
 
== [[Kid A In Alphabet Land]] ==
 
[[Image:Kida_j.gif |right|frame]]
 
'''Kid A In Alphabet Land Jumps Another Juicy 'Jaculator - That Jerk-Off, Jouissance!'''
 
You Displease Me, And You Think I Gain Pleasure From That! Heh! You Must Take Me For Some Masochistic Francophile! And You're The Substance I'm Paid With By My Lack Of Substance? You're Impossible! I'm Coming To Get You! - Fuck You, Jouissance!
 
 
==See Also==
 
* [[Autism]]
 
* [[Castration of the subject]]
 
* [[Dark continent]]
 
* [[Desire]]
 
* [[Formula of Fantasy]]
 
* [[Fetishism]]
 
* [[Graph of Desire]]
 
* [[Kantianism]]
 
* [[Masochism]]
 
* [[Matheme]]
 
* ''[[Object a]]''
 
* [[Phallus]]
 
* [[Repetition compulsion]]
 
* [[Formulas of Sexuation]]
 
* [[Subject of the drive]]
 
* [[Suffering]]
 
* [[Symptom]]
 
* ''[[Sinthome]]''
 
* [[Voyeurism]]
 
 
==References==
 
<references/>
 
# Freud, Sigmund. (1920). Beyond the pleasure principle. SE, 18: 1-64.
 
# ——. (1930). Civilization and its discontents. SE, 21: 57-145.
 
# Lacan, Jacques. (1991). Le séminaire. Book 17: L'envers de la psychanalyse (1969-1970). Paris: Seuil.
 
# ——. (1992). The seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book 7: The ethics of psychoanalysis (1959-1960) (Dennis Porter, Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton.
 
# ——. (1998). The seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book 20: On feminine sexuality: the limits of love and knowledge, encore (1972-1973) (Bruce Fink, Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton.
 
# ——. (2002). The subversion of the subject and the dialectic of desire in the Freudian unconscious. In his Écrits: A selection (Bruce Fink, Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1960.)
 
 
[[Category:Desire]]
 
[[Category:Kid A In Alphabet Land]]
 
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
 
[[Category:Terms]]
 
[[Category:Concepts]]
 
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
 
[[Category:Sexuality]]
 
{{Footer Kid A}}
 

Revision as of 23:36, 3 August 2006