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==Nature and Language==
[[Jacques Lacan]] posits a distinction between [[human]]s and other [[animal]]s, the basis of which is [[language]].<ref>{{S1}} p.223</ref>
[[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]]; [[humanHuman]]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]].
==Nature and Culture==[[Lacan]] adopts the traditional [[anthropology|anthropological]] opposition between [[naturenauture]] and [[culture]] ([[culture]] being, in [[Lacan]]ian terms, the [[symbolic]] [[order]]).
==Incest Prohibition==
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>
By insribing 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]].
[[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 the [[natural givens]] [[order]].
<blockquote>In the [[human ]] world, even "those significations [[signification]]s that are closest to [[need]], significations [[signification]]s that are relative to the most purely [[biological ]] insertion into a nutrittive and captivating environment, primordial significations[[signification]]s, are, in theri their sequence and in their very foundation, subject to the laws [[law]]s of the [[signifier]].<ref>{{S3}} p. 198</ref></blockquote>
[[Lacan]] argued that "the [[Freudian]] discovery teaches us that all natural harmony in man is profoundly disconcerted."<ref>{{S3}} p.83</ref>
Such a '[[mythical]]' pre--[[linguistic]] [[need]] can only be hypothesized after it has been articulated in [[demand]].
==Human Sexuality==The [[Lacanabsence]] 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 of a pure natural state at the beginning in which the [[human]] [[subject]] might [[exist]] before being caught up in the [[symbolicnatural]] [[order]]. [[Need]] is never present in a pure pre-[[linguistichuman]] state in the human being: such a 'mythical' pre-linguistic [[needexistence]] can only be hypothesized after it has been articulated seen most clearly in human [[demandsexuality]].
[[Freud]] and [[Lacan]] both argue that [[human]] [[sexuality]] is entirely caught up in the [[cultural]] [[order]].
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.
== References ==
<references/>
[[Category:Culture]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]