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act (acte)
==def==
As I said when discussing Badiou's concept of the 'event' (in
chapter 5), it is not self-evident what constitutes an 'event' (or an
'act'). Examples of what Zižek calls 'acts' vary widely in scope and
impact. At the lowest level of agape there is a kind of Pollyanna-ish
'saying "Yes!" to life in its mysterious synchronic multitude' (Fragile
Absolute, 103; also Fright, 172; cf. Ticklish Subject, 150). Then there is
the fait divers of Mary Kay Letourneau's affair with a boy under the
. age of consent. Some characters in works of literature or film
- perform an 'act' when they sacrifice what they hold dearest, com-
.mitting what Zižek calls 'a strike against the self'. An example is
Kevin Spacey's shooting of his own wife and daughter, who are
being held hostage by rival gangsters, in The Usual Suspects (Fragile
Absolute, 149-50). Others literary characters, like Antigone and
Sygne, or Sophie in Sophie's Choice (Enjoy!, 70ff), act in such a way
are substitutes for the enigmatic os]ET a. Because desire comes to us
from the Other, it is a mistake to think of it as subversive; on the
contrary, it is banal in the extreme.
==def==
Lacan draws a distinction between mere 'behaviour', which all animals engage in, and 'acts', which are symbolic and which can only be ascribed to human subjects (S11, 50). A fundamental quality of an act is that the actor can be held responsible for it; the concept of the act is thus an ethical concept (see ETHICS).
However, the psychoanalytic concept of responsibility is very different from the legal concept. This is because the concept of responsibility is linked with the whole question of intentionality, which is complicated in psychoanalysis by the discovery that, in addition to his conscious plans, the subject also has unconscious intentions. Hence someone may well commit an act which he claims was unintentional, but which analysis reveals to be the expression of an unconscious desire. Freud called these acts 'parapraxes', or 'bungled actions' (Fr. acte manquÈ); they are 'bungled', however, only from the point of view of the conscious intention, since they are successful in expressing an unconscious desire (see Freud, 1901b). Whereas in law, a subject cannot be found guilty of murder (for example) unless it can be proved that the act was intentional, in psychoanalytic treatment the subject is faced with the ethical duty of assuming responsibility even for the unconscious desires expressed in his actions (see BEAUTIFUL SOUL). He must recognise even apparently accidental actions as true acts which express an intention, albeit unconscious, and assume this intention as his own. Neither ACTING OUT DOr a PASSAGE TO THE ACT are true acts, since the subject does not assume responsibility for his desire in these actions.
