Jacques Lacan:Oedipus

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Introduction

Lacan's work in the 1950s placed emphasis on the role of language and the symbolic order.

The Oedipus Complex

The Oedipus complex is a major concept of psychoanalysis.

Mythology

The Oedipus complex refers to the ancient Greek tragedy (myth) by Sophocles, [[Oedipus Rex], in which Oedipus unwittingly kills his father and marries his mother.


Freud remarks that Sophocles's Oedipus Rex has such "gripping power" because being in love with one's mother and jealous of one's father is "a universal event in early childhood."

[1]

For Freud, the childhood desire to sleep with the mother and to kill the father.


Freud describes the source of this complex in his Introductory Lectures (Twenty-First Lecture): "You all know the Greek legend of King Oedipus, who was destined by fate to kill his father and take his mother to wife, who did everything possible to escape the oracle's decree and punished himself by blinding when he learned that he had none the less unwittingly committed both these crimes" (16.330).


According to Freud, Sophocles' play, Oedipus Rex, illustrates a formative stage in each individual's psychosexual development, when the young child transfers his love object from the breast (the oral phase) to the mother.

At this time, the child desires the mother and resents (even secretly desires the murder) of the father.

(The Oedipus complex is closely connected to the castration complex.)

Such primal desires are, of course, quickly repressed but, even among the mentally sane, they will arise again in dreams or in literature.


Among those individuals who do not progress properly into the genital phase, the Oedipus Complex, according to Freud, can still be playing out its psychdrama in various displaced, abnormal, and/or exaggerated ways.

Ambivalence

The complex manifests itself as the desire for the death of the rival, the parent of the same sex, and, as the sexual desire for the parent of the opposite sex.


The Oedipus complex explains the child's sexual attraction towards the parent of the opposite sex and jealousy of the parent of the same sex.

It initially refers to the boy's perception of his mother as a sexual object and of his father as a rival.

The Oedipus complex (complexe d'Oedipe) was defined by Freud as an unconscious set of loving and hostile desires which the subject experiences in relation to its parents; the subject desires one parent, and thus enters into rivalry with the other parent.

In the 'positive' form of the Oedipus complex, the desired parent is the parent of the opposite sex to the subject, and the parent of the same sex is the rival.

The Oedipus complex emerges in the third year of life and then declines in the fifth year, when the child renounces sexual desire for its parents and identifies with the rival.

Structural Remix

Jacques Lacan developed his own distinctive 'structural' model of the Oedipus complex.

Jacques Lacan reformulated the Oedipus complex as a symbolic structure.

The Oedipus complex is the symbolic structure that organizes our social-symbolic and unconscious relations (of social meanings).

The Oedipus complex represents a triangular structure, which breaks the binary relationship between the mother and child in the imaginary.

Development

The Oedipus complex is central to Freud's theory of human development.

The Oedipus complex is intended to explain the ambivalent feelings (love and hate) that the child holds towards its parents.

The child learns to negotiate and resolve its ambivalent feelings towards its parents.

(For Freud, this process (of the resolution of the Oedipus complex) occurs between the ages of three and five years.)



Desire of the Mother

The child is characterized by its absolute dependence upon the mother who fulfils its needs (feeding, caring, nurturing).

The child is absolutely dependent on the mother to fulfil its needs (feeding, caring, nurturing).

The infant soon confronts the enigma of the desire of the mother.

What am I in the Other's desire? The answers the child comes up with will be crucial to its resolution of the Oedipus complex.

The Oedipus complex marks the transition from the imaginary to the symbolic.

The Name-of-the-Father does not have to be the real father, or even a male figure.

The Name-of-the-Father is a symbolic position that the child perceives to be the location of the object of the mother's desire.

The Name-of-the-Father intervenes as a third term (breaks apart the dual relation, imaginary unity, between the mother and the child.

The (intervention of the) Name-of-the-Father (as a third term) introduces a space within which the child can begin to identify itself as a separate being from the mother.

(Lacan calls this third term the Name-of-the-Father.)

The Name-of-the-Father is a position of authority and the symbolic law that intervenes to prohibit the child's desire.

For Lacan, the key signifier that this whole process turns upon is the phallus.

The Meaning of the Phallus

According to Freud, the Oedipus complex is contemporaneous with the 'Phallic Phase' of infantile sexuality.


Prior to this phase Freud thought of all children as essentially bisexual beings who attained sexual satisfaction through auto-eroticism.


By this he means that very young infants gain sexual stimulation through their own bodies.


There

is no sexual object as such, but they achieve satisfaction through the manipulation of erotogenic zones. An erotogenic zone is any area or organ of the body that is assigned sexual significance by the infant, such as the oral and anal orifices as well as the sexual organs. For example, thumb-sucking is an auto-erotic activity in the sense that it involves the stimulation of a particular area of the body and the infant derives pleasure from it. What changes through the phallic phase is that the genitals become the focus of sexual stimulation. There is a crucial difference, however, between adult and infantile sexuality in that during infancy, for both sexes, 'only one genital, namely the male one, comes into account. What is present, therefore, is not the primacy of the genitals, but the primacy of the phallus' (Freud 1991e [1923]: 308). It is the sight of the presence or absence of the penis that forces the child to recognise that boys and girls are different. To begin with, Freud postulated that both sexes disavow the absence of the woman's penis and believe they have seen it, even if it is not there. Eventually, however, they are forced to admit its absence and they account for this absence through the idea of castration. The boy sees the woman as a castrated man and the girl has to accept that she has not got and never will have a penis. Freud did not distinguish between the penis as an actual bodily organ and the 'phallus' as a signifier of sexual difference. The phallus within Freud's work always maintained its reference to the male sexual organ.


For Lacan, the importance of Freud's insight into infantile sexuality was not whether or not girls have a penis and boys fear that theirs will be cut off, but the function of the phallus as a signifier of lack and sexual difference. The phallus in Lacanian theory should not be confused with the male genital organ, although it clearly carries these connotations. The phallus is first and foremost a signifier and in Lacan's system a particularly privileged signifier. The phallus operates in all three of Lacan's registers - the imaginary, the symbolic and the real - and as his system develops it becomes the one single indivisible signifier that anchors the chain of signification. Indeed, it is a particularly privileged signifier, as we will see, because it inaugurates the process of signification itself. In this chapter we will focus on the imaginary and symbolic aspects of the phallus and how these relate through the paternal metaphor to the Name-of-the-Father. We will return to the question of the phallus, jouissance and the real in subsequent chapters.

The Imaginary Phallus

The Oedipus complex has the structure of an imaginary triangle]] The Oedipus complex is characterised by the imaginary triangle of mother, child and phallus.


In The Seminar, Book V, Lacan analyses this passage from the imaginary to the symbolic by identifying three 'times' of the Oedipus complex, the sequence being one of logical rather than chronological priority.< ref>Lacan, 1957-8: seminar of 22 January 1958</ref>


Lacan argues that, prior to the invention of the father there is never a purely dual relation between the mother and the child but always a third term, the phallus, an imaginary object which the mother desires beyond the child himself.< ref>S4, 240-1</ref>


Lacan hints that the presence of the imaginary phallus as a third term in the imaginary triangle indicates that the symbolic father is already functioning at this time.< ref>Lacan, 1957-8: seminar of 22 January 1958</ref>


The child (in the first time of the Oedipus complex) realizes that both he or she and the mother are marked by a lack.


The mother is marked by lack, since she is seen to be incomplete; otherwise, she would not desire.


The subject is also marked by a lack, since he does not completely satisfy the mother's desire.


The lacking element in both cases is the imaginary phallus.


The mother desires the phallus she lacks, and (in conformity with Hegel's theory of desire) the subject seeks to become the object of her desire; he seeks to be the phallus for the mother and fill out her lack.


At this point, the mother is omnipotent and her desire is the law.


Although this omnipotence may be seen as threatening from the very beginning, the sense of threat is intensified when the child's own sexual drives begin to manifest themselves (for example in infantile masturbation).


This emergence of the real of the drive introduces a discordant note of anxiety into the previously seductive imaginary triangle.< ref>S4, 225-6</ref>

The child is now confronted with the realisation that he cannot simply fool the mother's desire with the imaginary semblance of a phallus - he must present something in the real.


Yet the child's real organ (whether boy or girl) is hopelessly inadequate.


This sense of inadequacy and impotence in the face of an omnipotent maternal desire that cannot be placated gives rise to anxiety.


Only the intervention of the father in the subsequent times of the Oedipus complex can provide a real solution to this anxiety.


THE IMAGINARY PHALLUS The child comes to realize that it is not the sole object of the mother's desire, as her desire is directed elsewhere.


The child will attempt to become the object of her desire and return to the initial state of blissful union.


The simple dyadic relationship between the mother and child is thus turned into a triangular relationship between the child, the mother and the object of her desire. The child attempts to seduce the mother by becoming that object of desire.


Lacan calls this third term the imaginary phallus. The imaginary phallus is what the child assumes someone must have in order for them to be the object of the mother's desire and, as her desire is usually directed towards the father, it is assumed that he possesses the phallus. Through trying to satisfy the mother's desire, the child identifies with the object that it presumes she has lost and attempts to become that object for her. The phallus is imaginary in the sense that it is associated in the child's mind with an actual object that has been lost and can be recovered. The Oedipus complex, for Lacan, involves the process of giving up the identification with this imaginary phallus, and recognizing that it is a signifier and as such was never there in the first place. What Freud called castration, therefore, is a symbolic process that involves the infant's recognition of themselves as 'lacking' something - the phallus. For Lacan, castration involves the process whereby boys accept that they can symbolically 'have' the phallus only by accepting that they can never actually have it 'in reality' and girls can accept 'not-having' the phallus once they give up on their 'phallic' identification with their mothers (we will discuss this very complicated idea in more detail in the chapter on sexual difference). This is the function of the Oedipus complex in Lacan.

The Symbolic Phallus

It is through the intervention of the Name-of-the-Father that the imaginary unity between child and mother is broken. The father is assumed to possess something that the child lacks and it is this that the mother desires. It is important here though not to confuse the Name-of-the-Father with the actual father. The Name-of-the-Father is a symbolic function that intrudes itno the illusory world of the child and breaks the imaginary dyad of the mother and child.

The child assumes that the father is one that satisfies the mother’s desire and possesses the phallus. In this sense, argues Lacan, the Oedipus complex involves an element of substitution, that is to say, the subtitution of one signifier, the desire of the mother, for another, the Name-of-the-Father. It is thoruhg this initial act of substitution that the process of signification begins and child enters the symbolic order as a subject of lack. It is also for this reason that Lacan describes the process of symbolization itself as ‘phallic’. It is through the Name-of-the-Father that the phallus is installed as the central organizing signifier of the unconscious. The phallus is the ‘original’ lost object, but only insofar as no one possessed it in the first place. The phallus, therefore, is not like any other signifier, it is the signifier of absence and does not ‘exist’ in its own right as a thing, an object or a bodily organ.

Lacan equates the process of giving up the imaginary phallus with Freud’s account of castration anxiety, but he argues that the process of castration in Freud is more complicated than people generally think. Castration involves not just an anxiety about losing one’s penis but simultaneously the recognition of ‘’lack’’ or ‘’absence’’. The child is concerned about losing its own penis and simultaneously recognizes that the mother does not have a penis. The idea of the penis, therefore, becomes metonymically linked to the recognition of ‘’lack’’. It is in this sense that Lacan argues that the phallus is not simply the penis; it is ‘’ the penis plus the recognition of absence or lack’’. Castration is not the fear that one has already lost, in the case of girls, or will lose, in the case of boys, one’s penis but rather the symbolic process of giving upo the idea that one can be the phallus for the mother. The intervention of the father distances the child from the mother and also places the phallus forever beyond its reach. If the symbolic father is seen to possess the phallus, then the child can only become a subject itself in the symbolic order by renouncing the imaginary phallus. The problem for Lacan is how does one symbolically represent ‘lack’ – something that by definition is not there? His solution is the idea of the ‘veil’. The presence of the veil suggests that there is an object behind it, which the veils covers over, although this is only a presumption on the part of the subject. In this way the veil enables the perpetuation of the idea that the object exists. Thus, both boys and girls can have a relationship to the phallus on the basis that it always remains veiled and out of reach. The phallus provides the vital link between desire and signification. It is desire that drives the process of symbolization. The phallus is the ultimate object of desire that we have lost and alwayss search for but never had in the first place.


To summarize, the phallus stands for that moment of rupture wen the child is forced to recognize the desire of the other; of the mother. “The mother is refused to the child in so far as a prohibition falls on the child’s desire to be what the mother desires.” The phallus, therefore, always belongs somewhere else; it breaks the mother/child dyad and initiates the order of symbolic exchange. In this sense the phallus is both imaginary and symbolic. It is imaginary in that it represents the object presumed to satisfy the mother’s desire; at the same time, it is symbolic in that it stands for the recognition that desire cannot be satisfied. By breaking the imaginary couple “the phallus represents a moment of division which re-enacts the fundamental splitting of the subject itself. As a presence in absence, a ‘seeming’ value, ‘’the phallus is a fraud’’.


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THE SYMBOLIC PHALLUS


The dual relation (imaginary unity) between child and mother is broken through the intervention of the Name-of-the-Father.

The intervention of the Name-of-the-Father breaks apart the dual relation (imaginary unity) between child and mother.

The Name-of-the-Father (is a symbolic function that) (intrudes into the illusory world of the child and) (breaks the imaginary dyad of the mother and child).


The father is assumed to possess something that the child lacks and it is this that the mother desires.

The child assumes that the father is one that satisfies the mother's desire and possesses the phallus.


The Name-of-the-Father does not necessarily correspond to the actual father.


The Oedipus complex involves the substitution of one signifier, the desire of the mother, for another, the Name-of-the-Father.

It is through this initial act of substitution that the process of signification begins and child enters the symbolic order as a subject of lack.


It is also for this reason that Lacan describes the process of symbolization itself as 'phallic'.


It is through the Name-of-the-Father that the phallus is installed as the central organizing signifier of the unconscious.


Through the Name-of-the-Father, the phallus is installed as the central organizing signifier of the unconscious.




The phallus is the 'original' lost object, but only insofar as no one possessed it in the first place.

The phallus, therefore, is not like any other signifier, it is the signifier of absence and does not 'exist' in its own right as a thing, an object or a bodily organ.








Lacan equates the process of giving up the imaginary phallus with Freud's account of castration anxiety, but he argues that the process of castration in Freud is more complicated than people generally think. Castration involves not just an anxiety about losing one's penis but simultaneously the recognition of lack or absence. The child is concerned about losing its own penis and simultaneously recognizes that the mother does not have a penis. The idea of the penis, therefore, becomes metonymically linked to the recognition of lack. It is in this sense that Lacan argues that the phallus is not simply the penis; it is the penis plus the recognition of absence or lack. Castration is not the fear that one has already lost, in the case of girls, or will lose, in the case of boys, one's penis but rather the symbolic process of giving up the idea that one can be the phallus for the mother. The intervention of the father distances the child from the mother and also places the phallus forever beyond its reach. If the symbolic father is seen to possess the phallus, then the child can only become a subject itself in the symbolic order by renouncing the imaginary phallus. The problem for Lacan is how does one symbolically represent 'lack' - something that by definition is not there? His solution is the idea of the 'veil'. The presence of the veil suggests that there is an object behind it, which the veil covers over, although this is only a presumption on the part of the subject. In this way the veil enables the perpetuation of the idea that the object exists. Thus, both boys and girls can have a relationship to the phallus on the basis that it always remains veiled and out of reach. The phallus provides the vital link between desire and signification. It is desire that drives the process of symbolization. The phallus is the ultimate object of desire that we have lost and always search for but never had in the first place.


The phallus stands for that moment of rupture when the child is forced to recognize the desire of the other; of the mother.


'The mother is refused to the child in so far as a prohibition falls on the child's desire to be what the mother desires' (Rose 1996a: 61).


The phallus, therefore, always belongs somewhere else; it breaks the mother/child dyad and initiates the order of symbolic exchange. In this sense the phallus is both imaginary and symbolic. It is imaginary in that it represents the object presumed to satisfy the mother's desire; at the same time, it is symbolic in that it stands in for the recognition that desire cannot be satisfied. By breaking the imaginary couple 'the phallus represents a moment of division [that “lack-in-being”] which re-enacts the fundamental splitting of the subject itself' (Rose 1996a: 63). As a presence in absence, a 'seeming' value, the phallus is a fraud.

The Law of the Father and the Superego

It is through the intervention of the father that the child is precipitated out of the imaginary world of infantile plenitude into the symbolic universe of lack. The Oedupis complex marks this transiiton from imaginary to symbolic, or, as Freud theorized in in such works as ‘’Totem and Taboo’’ (1913) and ‘’Civilization and its Discontents’’ (1930), the transition from nature to culture. The Oedipus complex for Freud marks the origin of civilization, religion, morals and art. It is only through the repression and sublimation of our incestuous desire for our mothers that civilization and culture can development. The Lacanian Name-of-the-Father, therefore, is associated with the prohibition of incest and the instigation of symbolic law. The symbolic order and the process of signification, according to Lacan, is ‘phalluc’ and governed by the paternal metaphor and the imposition of paternal law. The father is seen to embody the socio-symbolic law and the fucntion of the paternal metaphor is to substitute the desire for the mother with the law of the father. This is also the founding moment of the unconscious for Lacan and the point at which the phallus is installed as the central organizing signifier of the unconscious. The internalization of the paternal metaphor also creates something else, though, that Freud designates as the ‘’superego’’. Lacan has developed the notion of the superego in a very specfic and important way.


The superego emerges through the transition from nature to culture via the internalization of the incest taboo and is often associated with the development of moral conscience. Lacan retains this association between the superego and the law and poitns to an inherent paradox that Freud did not himself develop. In ‘’Totem and Taboo’’ Freud argued that the prohibition against incest provided the foundation for all subsequent social laws. In other words, the most fundmanetal desire of all human subjects is the desire for incest and its prohibition represents the governing principle of all societies. For Lacan, the superego is located in the symbolic order and retains a close but paradoxical relationship to the law. As with the law, the prohibition operates only iwhtin the realm of culture and its purpose is always to exclude incest:

“Freud designates the prohibition of incest as the underlying principle of the pimordial law, the law of which all other cultural developments are no more than consequences and ramifications. And at the same time he identifies incest as the fundmental desire.[2]

The law, in other words, is founded upon that which it seeks to exlcude, or, to put it another way, the desire to break and transgress the law is the very precondition for the existence of the law itself. On the one hnad, the superego is a symbolic structure that regulates the subject’s desire, and, on the other, there is this senseless, blind imperativeness to it. As Lacan says in seminar XX, nothing forces anyone to enjoy except the superego: “The superego is the imperative of ‘’jouissance’’ – Enjoy!”[3] The superego, therefore, is at once the law and its own destruction or that which undermines the law. The superego emerges at the point where the law – the public or social law – fails and, at this very point of failure, the law is compelled, as Zizek puts it, “to search for support in an ‘’ilegal’’ enjoyment.”[4] The superego is, in a sense, the dialectical contrary of the pbulic law; it is what Zizek calls its obscene ‘nightly’ law – that dark underside that always necessarily accompanies the public law. According to psychoanalysis, there is simply no way a subject can avoid this tension ebtween the law and the desire to transgress it and this manifests itself as ‘guilt’. Indeed, for psychoanalysis, we are not simply guilty if we break th elaw and commit icnest, but rather we are always –already guuilty of the ‘’desire’’ to commit incest. Hence, the ultiamte paradox of the superego: “the more we submit ourselves to the superego imperative, the greater its pressure, the more we feel guilty.”[5]


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THE LAW OF THE FATHER AND THE SUPEREGO The intervention of the Name-of-the-Father marks the point at which the child (leaves the imaginary world of infantile plenitude and) enters the symbolic universe of lack.


The Oedipus complex marks a transition from imaginary to symbolic, from nature to culture.< ref>Freud theorized it in such works as Totem and Taboo (1991g [1913]) and Civilisation and its Discontents (1991f [1930])</ref>



The Oedipus complex marks the origin of civilization, religion, morals and art.



It is only through the repression and sublimation of our incestuous desire for our mothers that civilization and culture can develop.





The Name-of-the-Father is associated with the prohibition of incest and the instigation of symbolic law.





The symbolic order and the process of signification, according to Lacan, is 'phallic' and governed by the paternal metaphor and the imposition of paternal law.


The father is seen to embody the socio-symbolic law and the function of the paternal metaphor is to substitute the desire for the mother with the law of the father.

This is also the founding moment of the unconscious for Lacan and the point at which the phallus is installed as the central organizing signifier of the unconscious.

The internalization of the paternal metaphor also creates something else, though, that Freud designates as the superego.

Lacan has developed the notion of the superego in a very specific and very important way.


The superego emerges through the transition from nature to culture via the internalization of the incest taboo and is often associated with the development of moral conscience.

Lacan retains this association between the superego and the law and points to an inherent paradox that Freud did not himself develop.

In Totem and Taboo Freud argued that the prohibition against incest provided the foundation for all subsequent social laws.

In other words, the most fundamental desire of all human subjects is the desire for incest and its prohibition represents the governing principle of all societies.

For Lacan, the superego is located in the symbolic order and retains a close but paradoxical relationship to the law.

As with the law, the prohibition operates only within the realm of culture and its purpose is always to exclude incest:

Freud designates the prohibition of incest as the underlying principle of the primordial law, the law of which all other cultural developments are no more than consequences and ramifications. And at the same time he identifies incest as the fundamental desire.( Lacan 1992 [1986]: 67)

The law, in other words, is founded upon that which it seeks to exclude, or, to put it another way, the desire to break and transgress the law is the very precondition for the existence of the law itself.

On the one hand, the superego is a symbolic structure that regulates the subject's desire, and, on the other, there is this senseless, blind imperativeness to it.

As Lacan says in seminar XX, nothing forces anyone to enjoy except the superego: 'The superego is the imperative of jouissance - Enjoy!' (1998 [1975]: 3).

The superego, therefore, is at once the law and its own destruction or that which undermines the law.

The superego emerges at the point where the law - the public or social law - fails and, at this very point of failure, the law is compelled, as Žižek puts it, 'to search for support in an illegal enjoyment' (1994:54).

The superego is, in a sense, the dialectical contrary of the public law; it is what Žižek calls its obscene 'nightly' law - that dark underside that always necessarily accompanies the public law.

According to psychoanalysis, there is simply no way a subject can avoid this tension between the law and the desire to transgress it and this manifests itself as 'guilt'.

Indeed, for psychoanalysis, we are not simply guilty if we break the law and commit incest, but rather we are always-already guilty of the desire to commit incest.

Hence, the ultimate paradox of the superego: 'the more we submit ourselves to the superego imperative, the greater its pressure, the more we feel guilty' (Žižek 1994:67).

We will see how these ideas work in practice later, but first we need to clarify one final ambiguity regarding the superego.


Pathology

Freud argued that all psychopathological structures could be traced to a malfunction in the Oedipus complex, which was thus dubbed 'the nuclear complex of the neuroses'.

(Following the resolution of the Oedipus complex, sexuality begins a latency period until it reappears during puberty.)

Freud argued that the Oedipus complex was a universal, trans-historical and trans-cultural phenomenon.

[T]he Oedipus complex is the nuclear complex of neuroses, and constitutes the essential part of their content.

It represents the peak of infantile sexuality, which, through its after-effects, exercises a decisive influence on the sexuality of adults. Every new arrival on this planet is faced by the task of mastering the Oedipus complex; anyone who fails to do so falls a victim to neurosis.<

ref>Freud 1991d [1905]: 149</ref>


The Two Fathers

It is through the identification with the Oedipal father that the incest prohibition is internalized and Oedipal desire abandoned and it is this process, for Freud, that constitues the superego. But what we find here in Freud is not one notion of the father but ‘’two’’. There is first of all the father of the Oedipus complex, who intervenes and disrupts the relationship between mother and child and thus denies the child’s access ot the mother’s desire. This is the father who transmits the laws to the child – the law of the incest prohibition – and subordiantes the child’s desire to the law. It is important to keep in mind, though, that this father is himself subject to the law.

Second, there is the primal father of ‘’Totem and Taboo’’, who is perceived to be outside the law. In Freud’s myth of origins the primal father is a figure of absolute power; the father who aggregates to himself the owmen and wealth of the primal ahorde by expelling his sons and rivals. What distinguishes this tyrannical figure from the Oedipal father is that he is not himself subordinated to the law – the law that prohibits his son’s access to the omwn of the horde. This other father, therefore – the cruel and licentious one – is the reverse side of the law. Both fathers function psychically at the level of the superego.


Identification with the primal father involves amn ambiguous process whereby the suibject simultaneously identifies with authority, the law and, at the same time, the illicit desires that would trasngress and undermine the law. As with the notion of the superego itself, the father functions in a peculiarly paradoxical way. He is simultnaeously the agency of authority and a figure outside the law who actively transgresses the law that he imposes upon others. The subject, therefore, is faced with its subordination to authority and the regualtion of its desires through the internalization of a signifier that is itself beyond the law. At a psychic level, an overly punishing superego and subordiantion to the symbolic law is one way in which the subject comes to resolve this unbearable situation. And yet, by implication, if one must exert strong measures to prohibit something, there msut be a correspondingly strong desire to commit the crime.

This vicious cycle of transgressiona nd punishment operates in the social domain through Zizek’s anlaysis of racism and anti-semitism.


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The incest prohibition is internalized (and Oedipal desire is abandoned) through the identification with the symbolic father.

For Freud, this process (of identification) constitutes the superego.

The father of the Oedipus complex intervenes and disrupts the relationship between mother and child, and denies the child access to the desite of the mother.

The father transmits the law to the child (the law of the incest prohibition) and subordinates the child's desire to the law.

It is important to keep in mind, though, that this father is himself subject to the law.

The primal father of Totem and Taboo is perceived to be outside the law.

In Freud's myth of origins the primal father is a figure of absolute power; the father who aggregates to himself the women and wealth of the primal horde by expelling his sons and rivals.

What distinguishes this tyrannical figure from the Oedipal father is that he is not himself subordinated to the law - the law that prohibits his son's access to the women of the horde.

This other father, therefore - the cruel and licentious one - is the reverse side of the law.

Both fathers function psychically at the level of the superego.

Identification with the primal father involves an ambiguous process whereby the subject simultaneously identifies with authority, the law and, at the same time, the illicit desires that would transgress and undermine the law.

As with the notion of the superego itself, the father functions in a peculiarly paradoxical way.

He is simultaneously the agency of authority and a figure outside the law who actively transgresses the law that he imposes upon others.

The subject, therefore, is faced with its subordination to authority and the regulation of its desires through the internalization of a signifier that is itself beyond the law.

At a psychic level, an overly punishing superego and subordination to the symbolic law is one way in which the subject comes to resolve this unbearable situation.

And yet, by implication, if one must exert strong measures to prohibit something, there must be a correspondingly strong desire to commit the crime.

Let us now see how this vicious cycle of transgression and punishment operates in the social domain through Žižek's analysis of racism and anti-Semitism.


Imaginary Father

The second 'time' of the Oedipus complex is characterised by the intervention of the imaginary father.


The father imposes the law on the mother's desire by denying her access to the phallic object and forbidding the subject access to the mother.


Lacan often refers to this intervention as the 'castration' of the mother, even though he states that, properly speaking, the operation is not one of castration but of privation.


This intervention is mediated by the discourse of the mother; in other words, what is important is not that the real father step in and impose the law, but that this law be respected by the mother herself in both her words and her actions.


The subject now sees the father as a rival for the mother's desire.


Real Father

The third 'time' of the Oedipus complex is marked by the intervention of the real father.


By showing that he has the phallus, and neither exchanges it nor gives it,[6] the real father castrates the child, in the sense of making it impossible for the child to persist in trying to be the phallus for the mother; it is no use competing with the real father, because he always wins.< ref>S4, 208-9, 227</ref>

The subject is freed from the impossible and anxiety-provoking task of having to be the phallus by realising that the father has it.


This allows the subject to identify with the father.


In this secondary (symbolic) identification the subject transcends the aggressivity inherent in primary (imaginary) identification.


Lacan follows Freud in arguing that the superego is formed out of this Oedipal identification with the father.< ref>S4, 415</ref>

Since the symbolic is the realm of the law, and since the Oedipus complex is the conquest of the symbolic order, it has a normative and normalising function: "the Oedipus complex is essential for the human being to be able to accede to a humanized structure of the real." [7]

This normative function is to be understood in reference to both clinical structures and the question of sexuality.

Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Imperative to Enjoyment!

Racism and anti-Semitism are both social and psychic structures. The unconscious, psychic, aspects of these processes are exemplary of superegoic structures.

Both racism and anti-Semitism are inherently contradictory ideologies.


In the United state, for example, we constantly hear and read in the media that immigrants are 'flooding' the country in order to feeload on the welfare of the state. At the same time, these very same immigrants are attacked for stealing our jobs and therefore putting ordinary citizens out of work. There is clearly a contradiction here - if immigrants are living a life of luxury on state benefits then they are not working; if on the other hand, they are working hard and taking out jobs, then they are clearly not living off the state but contributing to it.

What psychoanalysis adds to our understanding of this process is how subjects manage to sustain thee contradictory beliefs.


The relationship between racism and anti-Semitism is a complex and changing one. Zizek observes that traditionally anti-Semitim haas always been considered as an 'exception' and concpetualized differently to other forms of racism. Whereas classicla racism propounds an ideology of national superiority, whereby so-called 'inferior' races were enslaved, anti-Semitism involves the systematic and organized annihiliation of the Jewish people. Moreoer, Nazi propaganda linked the need for genoicde to another fundamental element of its ideology. It was not just that the Jews had to be killed because they represented a threat to the state, but more importantly that the socio-symbolic order itself - the new Aryan state - could not be fully realized without that process taking place; and it is here that the notion of the superego comes into play.

The 'Jew', or the Jewish race, is presented within fascinst propaganda as a figure who transgresses and undermiens the law and as such must be first punished and eventually eradicated so that a new harmonious Aryan society can emerge.


For authoritarian regime to exist, however totalitarian it may be, the active participation and support of a population is required, toerwise the regime will very quickly collapse. And yet, why would any population support an overtly repressive regime? This is where the ambiugity of the father and what LAcan calls the superegoic imperative to Enjoy comes in. When a subject identifies with a leader/father figur,e he or she identifies witha position of Oedipal power and authority. At the same time, however, the subject identifies with that curel and licentious father of the primal horde. If we do not have access to pleasure and enjoyment, we assume that it is because someone else has usurped our position and taken it from us. Hence the inflated iamges of power and potency ascribed to other 'minority' groups. Accoridng to Zizek, this is the logic that is at work in anti-Semitism. The efficacy of the figure of the 'Jew' relies on the assumption of a certain surplus - that Jews possess somthing that we do not and therefore they ahve access to pleasures that we are denied. For racism and anti-Semtiism to function psychically an impossible, unfathomable nejoyment, allegedly stolen from us, msut be attributed to the other. Paradoixcally, argues Zizek, what 'holds together' a given community is "not so much identification with the public or symbolic Law that regulates the communty's 'normal' everyday life, but rather identification with a specific form of transgression of the Law, of the Law's suspension (in psychoanalytic terms, with a specific form of enjoyment).[8]

More specifically, what holds communitites together is the attribution of excessive enjoyment to other or alien groups; for instance, the sterotypical fantasy of seuxal potency associated with blakc men. This attribution of excessive enjoyment to the other then comes to operate as a specific form of theft for the subject - the theft of one's own enjoyment.


Psychoanalysis argues that the inehrent ambiguity of these psychic structrues - the superego, the father and fantasy - is a necessary and constituive part of all social roders and essential to their proper funcitoning. If the threat is not actually, empirically, there then it will have to be invented, just as Nazi ideology had to construct the 'conceptual Jew' in order to justify its own repressive regime. The poitn is that the Jews is not hte cause of that ideology, but rather something that is constitued in its effects, that it to say, the Jew is posited retrosepctively as the condition of possibility for the fascist regime. The notion of the 'conceptual Jew' is what gives the irrationality of fascist ideology its coherence nad consistency. Within racism and anti-Semitism, enjoyment, and aspecifically an 'excess' of enjoyment, is always imputed to the other: "the other may be lazy but they still have more fun than us; they live off our hard work, etc." However that is not enoguh in itself for racism to take hold. The enjoyment of the other must also be seen as depriving us of our own enjoyment: "we work hard to build a community we cna be proud of and be happy within, but this goal is denied us by lazy scrounging foreginers. We can therefor not enjoy our community because they have stolen away from ust aht which would most fully realize our enjoyment." This is what Zizek sees as the logic of racism and anti-Semitism: the theft of enjoyment.




Furthermore, the Nazis claimed that, because there were so many Jewish people who occupied positions of wealth and power, then the state mus tbe strong and authoritative to counteract them.

On the one hand, therefore, we find in fascinst propaganda the portrayal of Jewish people as less than human -as insects and rodents - o that it is easier to rationally justify their extermination and, on the other, the attribution to them of excessive power and influence. That is to sya, a dual process is taking plce whereby the dehumanizing of the o ther is accompanied by an inflation of the other's power and strenght. If a particular group is so small and significant that we can simply stamp them out then why bother? They cannot pose that much of a threat. We must eradicat ethe other precisely because by they are rich, powerful and influential they are depriving us of our rightful position in society. What wee find in anti-Semitism is that vicious cycle arituclated through the superego, whereby the law - the prohibition that maintains and regulates the social order - draws its strength from that which it excludes. The more authoritarian a regime becomes the greater the threat against it mus tbe presumed to be. Nazi ideology, therefore, involves a particualr fantasy structure that allows that subject to reconcile the apprently contradictory positions that the Jewish people are at once less than human and as such represent an insidious threat to 'our way of life' and at the same time are superhuman, hence their greater power, influence and success.


According to psychoanalysis, there is always a good and a bade side to fantasy. There is the blissful dream state beyond the mundane aspects of our lives and the horrors of modern civilization, but this is always acompanied by a darker side that involves envy, irritation and malice. Totalitarianism povides a perfect illustration of this dual structure. FIrs,t there is the utopian side - the fantasy of the perfect state as a unified harmonious community of organically, naturally, linked people. This utopianism however, is always accompanied by its opposite - those fantasies of plots, conspiracies and threats that stop the realization of this utopia. THus, argues Zizek, insoar as a community expeirences its reality as regulated and harmoniously structured, it has to repress the inehrent conflcit at its veyr heart. In other words, for a utopian fantasy to work, it presupposes the disavowal and repression of part of itself, and its effectiveness depends on how wwell it does this. Fo the Nazis, the Jews performed precisely this function. The figure of 'the Jew' is the preconditon for anti-Semitic ideology; it is that which sustains anti-Semitism. What Zizek calls the 'conceptual Jew' must be invented and sustained at the level of fantasy for anti-Semitic ideology to work. Interestingly, aruges Zizek, Nazi ideology was often most virulent in those areas of Germany that had the fewest Jews. PAradoxically, then the smaller the threat and the actual number of Jews present, the greater their power was perceived to be. This in turn, of course, legitimates a greater use of repression and force, which in turn presupposes a stronger threat agaisnt it. This is the vicious, self-punishing, cycle of the superego.

Summary

Lacan reformulates the central complex of psychoanalysis, Oedipus complex, as a symbolic structure.



Thus, for Lacan, the threat of castration does not involve an actual bodily threat but a symbolic process, as the infant assumes a position in the symbolic order as a desiring subject.


Similarly, Lacan radically reformulated the role of the father.


The role of the father in psychoanalysis depends not upon the presence of an actual father but upon a signifier, the paternal metaphor, which substitutes the desire of the mother with symbolic law.


It is through the intervention of the Name-of-the-Father that the dyadic relationship of the imaginary is broken and the phallus is installed as the original lost object.


The phallus is the original object-cause of desire and the central organizing signifier of the unconscious.


These ideas are linked through the notion of the two fathers to the function of the superego, as at once the internalization of the symbolic law and the desire to transgress this law.



the question of desire and the subject of the unconscious.

  1. Freud 1985
  2. Lacan 1986, 67
  3. 1975, 3
  4. 1994, 54
  5. Zizek 1994, 67
  6. S3, 319
  7. S3, 198
  8. 1994:55