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Fantasy
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==Sigmund Freud==
The [[concept ]] of [[fantasy]] is central to [[Freud]]'s [[Works of Sigmund Freud|work]].<ref>"[[Fantasy]]" is spelt "[[fantasy|phantasy]]" in the ''[[Standard Edition]]''.</ref> Indeed, the origin of [[psychoanalysis]] is bound up with [[Freud]]'s [[recognition]] in 1897 that [[memory|memories]] of [[seduction]] are sometimes the product of [[fantasy]] rather than traces of [[real]] [[sexual]] abuse. This crucial [[moment]] in the [[development]] of [[Freud]]'s [[thought]] (which is often simplistically dubbed "the abandonment of the seduction [[theory]]") seems to imply that [[fantasy]] is opposed to [[reality]], a purely [[illusory]] product of the [[imagination]] which stands in the way of a correct [[perception]] of reality. However, such a view of [[fantasy]] cannot be maintained in [[psychoanalytic theory]], since [[reality]] is not seen as an unproblematic given in which there is a single objectively correct way of perceiving, but as something which is itself discursively constructed.
==Jacques Lacan==
===Protection Function===
While [[Lacan]] accepts [[Freud]]'s formulations on the importance of [[fantasy]] and on its [[visual]] quality as a scenario which stages [[desire]], he emphasizes the protective function of [[fantasy]]. [[Lacan]] compares the [[fantasy]] [[scene]] to a frozen [[image]] on a [[cinema]] [[screen]]; just as the [[film]] may be stopped at a certain point in [[order]] to avoid showing a [[trauma]]tic [[scene]] which follows, so also the [[fantasy]] [[scene]] is a [[defence]] which veils [[castration]].<ref>{{S4}} pp. 119-120</ref> The [[fantasy]] is thus characterized by a fixed and immobile quality.
For Žižek, fantasy is not an exercise in fulfilment, contentment or [[satisfaction]]. Instead, it provides a scene for a privileged yet [[arbitrary]] object that embodies the force of desire. The foundational premise of fantasy in this rendering lies in the [[claim]] that desire is not something that is given; rather, it is assembled. Therefore, fantasy acts as a structure that provides the coordinates for a subject’s desire. That is, fantasy provides the idea of a privileged object that desire fixates on in order to provide the subject with its [[position]] in relation to it. This privileged object acts as the ''[[objet petit a]]'' or object-[[cause]] of desire. This object [[structures]] the subject’s experience of the [[world]] in so far as this object is taken as more than its [[material]] property. The object that consumes desire and therefore occupies the fantasy of the subject must first fall prey to the [[illusion]] that it is more than its pragmatic material. The object is marked by this structure as being more than its materiality, as being endowed with the promise to [[satisfy]] the desire that necessitates it. Thus, fantasy acts as the mode whereby the subject learns to desire because through fantasy the subject is situated as [[desiring]].
The role fantasy plays is twofold: [[universal]] and particular. Fantasy is a universal structure that indexes, points or directs our desire towards a [[physical]] manifestation that occupies desire. Yet, what is particular to each and every subject is the way fantasy structures the relation to the trauma of lack predicated by desire. This constitutive lack that the privileged object promises to fulfil acts as a screen that orients each fantasy, which in turn supports desire in order to shield the subject from the trauma of lack itself. In this way, fantasy bestows reality with a fictional [[coherence]] and consistency that appears to fulfil the lack that constitutes [[social]] reality. Hence, Žižek’s foremost contribution to this long-theorized notion lies in showing how fantasy serves as a [[political]] structure. He reveals how fantasy can fill in [[ideological]] gaps and provide access to [[obscene]] ''[[jouissance]]'', and he contends that a failure to explicate the essence of political beliefs does not imply any failure in the hold these beliefs have over us. Instead, political [[ideologies]] serve to give subjects a means of envisioning the world in which such a failure emerges as evidence as to how transcendent is their particular [[ideology]]. Fantasy serves [[politics]] precisely in that each political group must recognize its point of view as manifested in the extrapolitical fantasy [[objects]] customary within that specific [[nation]], [[culture]] or [[religion]]. If not, these groups must displace the sitting ideologies’ fantasy objects with their chosen manifestations. Consequently, for Žižek, fantasy goes beyond the usual symbolic coordinates, so that [[traversing]] the fantasy does not mean getting rid of the fantasy but being even more taken up by it.
Consequently, fantasy offers us the illusion that the object we pursue will assuage the discomfort of lack. In this formulation, desire is separated from [[drive]] because it privileges the object of our fantasy that presents itself as the [[cure]] for lack. Desire, in this [[case]], predicates its function on the attainment of the object of our fantasies, while drive reaches satisfaction through the continual pursuit of this object. That is, drive functions through the [[repetition]] of this cycle whereas desire places [[faith]] in the redeeming quality of the object. The privileged object of our desire and the fantasy that supports it act in two ways: (a) as the site where the human subject invests in the hope for an enjoyment (''jouissance'') that will [[return]] the subject to a non-lacking [[state]], which allows each human subject to tolerate this status; and (b) as a fantasmatic, and thus arbitrary, promise of a non-lacking status that does not [[exist]], which replaces a [[partial]] and obtainable enjoyment by holding out the idea of a [[total]] enjoyment that it ultimately cannot produce or [[guarantee]]. Desire constantly moves forwards from object to object because each new instantiation of our fantasy fails to provide the satisfaction the human subject believes it will provide. In this sense, fantasy remains the same, but our desire forces us to continue the [[search]] for the impossible owing to the inherent failure each object represents. Because the subject does not lack an experiential object, lack is misattributed as a [[negative]] [[category]] that can be overcome by addition.
==References==
<div style="font-size:11px" class="references-small"><references/></div>
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
[[Category:Treatment]]
[[Category:Sexuality]]
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Terms]]
[[Category:Zizek Dictionary]]
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