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[[Jacques Lacan]] posits a distinction between [[human]]s and other [[animal]]s, that is, between 'human society' and 'animal society'.<ref>S1 p.223</ref>
The basis of this distinction is [[language]]; [[human]]s have [[language]], whereas [[animal]]s merely have [[code]]s.
As a result, [[animal]] [[psychology]] is entirely dominated by the [[imaginary]], whereas [[human]] [[psychology]] is complicated by the additional dimension of the [[symbolic]].
[[Lacan]] adopts the traditional [[anthropology|anthropological]] opposition between [[nature]] and [[culture]] ([[culture]] being, in [[Lacan]]ian terms, the [[symbolic]] [[order]]).
Like [[Claude Levi-Strauss]] and other [[anthropology|anthropologists]], [[Lacan]] points to the [[prohibition]] of [[incest]] as the kernel of the [[law|legal]] [[structure]]] which differentiates [[culture]] from [[nature]].
<blockquote>"The primordial Law is therefore that which in regulating marriage superimposes the kingdom of culture on that of a nature abandoned to the law of mating."<ref>E. p.66</ref></blockquote>
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The regulation of kinship by the [[incest]] [[taboo]] points to the fact that the 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]] beings is not that they lack the [[imaginary]] dimension of [[animal]] [[psychology]], but that in human beings this [[imaginary]] [[order]] is distorted by the added dimension of the [[symbolic]].
The imaginary is what aniamls and human beings have in common, except that in human beings 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 thoughts."<ref>{{Ec}} p.484</ref>
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On the other hand, [[Lacan]] also uses the term '[[nature]]' to denote the idea that there is a 'natural order' in [[human]] [[existence]].
This great [[fantasy]] of [[nature]] underlies modern [[psychology]], which attempts to explain [[human]] [[behavior]] by reference to ethological categories such as [[instinct]] and [[adaptation]].
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[[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 beings from natural givens.
In the human world, even "those significations that are closest to need, significations that are relative to the most purely biological insertion into a nutrittive and captivating environment, primordial significations, are, in theri sequence and in their very foundation, subject to the laws of the signifier.<ref>S3. 198</ref>
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[[Lacan]] thus argues that "the Freudian discovery teaches us that all natural harmony in man is profoundly disconcerted."<ref>S3. 83</ref>
There is not even a pure natural state at the beginning in which the [[human]] [[subject]] might [[exist]] before being caught up in the [[symbolic]] [[order]].
[[Need]] is never present in a pure pre-[[linguistic]] state in the human being: such a 'mythical' pre-linguistic [[need]] can only be hypothesized after it has been articulated in [[demand]].
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The [[absence]] of a [[natural]] [[order]] in [[human]] [[existence]] can be seen most clearly in human [[sexuality]].
[[Freud]] and [[Lacan]] both argue that even [[sexuality]], which might seem to be the [[signification]] closest to nature in the human being, is completely caught up in the [[cultural]] [[order]]; there is no such thing, for the human being, as a natural [[sexual relationship]].
One consequence of this is that [[perversion]] cannot be defined by reference to a supposed [[natural]] or [[biological]] [[norm]] governing [[sexuality]].
Whereas [[animal]] [[instincts]] are relatively invariable, [[human]] [[sexuality]] is governed by [[drive]]s which are extremely variable and do not aim at a [[biology|biological]] function.
==See Also==
* [[law]]
* [[prohibition]]
* [[biology]]
== References ==
<references/>
[[Category:Culture]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
[[Category:Anthropology]]
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Terms]]
[[Category:Dictionary]]
