Changes

A constant theme running throughout [[Lacan]]'s work is the distinction he draws between [[human]] [[being]]s and other [[animal]]s, or, as [[Lacan]] puts it, between "[[nature|human society]]" and "[[nature|animal society]]."<ref>{{S1}} p.223</ref>

On the one hand, he uses it to designate one term in the opposition, namely the [[nature|animal world]].  In this sense, [[Lacan]] adopts the traditional [[anthropology|anthropological]] opposition between [[nature]] and [[culture]] ([[culture]] being, in [[Lacan]]ian terms, the [[symbolic]] [[order]]).

The regulation of kinship by the [[incest]] [[taboo]] points to the fact that the [[Name-of-the-Father|paternal function]] is at the heart of the rift between [[human]]s and [[animal]]s.  By inscribing a line of descent from [[male]] to [[male]] and thus ordering a series of generations, the [[Father]] marks the difference between the [[symbolic]] and the [[imaginary]].

In other words, what is unique about [[human]] [[being]]s is not that in [[human]] [[being]]s the [[imaginary]] [[order]] is distorted by the added dimension of the [[symbolic]].  The [[imaginary]] is what [[animal]]s and [[human]] [[being]]s have in common, except that in [[human]] [[being]]s it is no longer a natural [[imaginary]].   Hence [[Lacan]] repudiates "the doctrine of a discontinuity between animal psychology and human psychology which is far away from our thought."<ref>{{Ec}} p.484</ref>

[[Lacan]] is highly critical of all such attempts to explain the phenomena in terms of [[nature]].  He argues that they are based on a failure to recognize the importance of the [[symbolic order]], which radically [[alienation|alienates]] [[human]] [[being]]s from the [[natural]] [[order]].

[[Lacan]] thus argues that "the [[Freudian]] discovery teaches us that all natural harmony in man is profoundly disconcerted."<ref>{{S3}} p.83</ref>  There is not even a pure [[nature|natural state]] at the beginning in which the [[human]] [[subject]] might [[exist]] before being caught up in the [[symbolic]] [[order]].

The [[absence]] of a [[natural]] [[order]] in [[human]] [[existence]] can be seen most clearly in [[human]] [[sexuality]]. [[Freud]] and [[Lacan]] both argue that [[human]] [[sexuality]] is entirely caught up in the [[cultural]] [[order]].

There is no such thing, for the [[human]] being, as a ''[[nature|natural]]'' [[sexual relationship]].  One consequence of this is that [[perversion]] cannot be defined by reference to a supposed [[natural]] or [[biological]] [[norm]] governing [[sexuality]].