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=Love Beyond Law=<i>The [[Lacanian]] [[Subject]]</i> not only provides an excellent introduction into the fundamental coordinates of Jacques [[Lacan]]'s [[conceptual]] network; it also proposes original solutions to (or at least clarifications of) some of the crucial dilemmas [[left]] open by Lacan's [[work]]. The principal two among [[them]] are the [[notion]] of "[[love]] beyond Law" mentioned by Lacan in the very last page of his [[Seminar]] XI, <a [[name]]="1"></a><a href="#1x">1</a> and the no less enigmatic [[thesis]] of the late Lacan conceives according to which, at the end of [[psychoanalytic]] [[treatment]], the subject becomes its own [[cause]]. Since these two points run against the predominant <i>doxa</i> on Lacan (love as a [[narcissistic ]] [[misrecognition ]] which obscures the [[truth]] of [[desire]]; the irreducibly [[decentred]] status of the subject), it is well worth the while to elaborate them. <br><br> "Love beyond Law" involves a "feminine" sublimation of drives into love. As Bruce Fink emphasizes again and again, love is here no longer merely a narcissistic (mis)[[recognition]] to be opposed to desire as the subject's 'truth ' but a unique [[case]] of direct asexual sublimation (integration into the [[order]] of the [[signifier]]) of [[drives]], of their [[jouissance]], in the guise of the asexual [[Thing]] ([[music]], [[religion]], etc.) experienced in the ecstatic surrender. <a name="2"></a><a href="#2x">2</a> What one should bear in [[mind]] apropos of this love beyond Law, this direct asexual sublimation of drive, is that it is inherently nonsensical, beyond [[meaning]]: meaning can only take [[place]] within the ([[symbolic]]) Law; the [[moment]] we trespass the [[domain]] of Law, meaning changes into [[enjoy]]-meant, <i>jouis-[[sense]]</i>.<a name="3"></a><a href="#3x">3</a> <br><br> Insofar as, according to Lacan, at the conclusion of psychoanalytic treatment, the subject assumes the drive beyond [[fantasy]] and beyond (the Law of) [[desire,]] this problematic also compels us to confront the question of the conclusion of treatment in all its urgency. If we discard the discredited standard [[formulas]] ("reintegration into [[the symbolic]] [[space]]", etc.), only two options remain open: desire or drive. That is to say, either we conceive the conclusion of treatment as the assertion of the subject's radical [[openness]] to the enigma of the [[Other]]'s desire no longer veiled by [[fantasmatic]] [[formations]], or we risk the step beyond desire itself and adopt the [[position]] of the saint who is no longer bothered by the Other's desire as its decentred cause. In the case of the saint, the subject, in an unheard-of way, "causes itself", becomes its own cause. Its cause is no longer decentred, i.e., the enigma of the Other's desire no longer has any hold over it. How are we to [[understand]] this strange [[reversal]] on which Fink is quite justified to insist? In [[principle]], things are clear enough: by way of positing itself as its own cause, the subject fully assumes the fact that the [[object]]-cause of its desire is not a cause that precedes its effects but is [[retroactively]] posited by the network of its effects: an [[event]] is never simply in itself [[traumatic]], it only becomes a [[trauma]] retroactively, by [[being]] 'secreted' from the subject's symbolic space as its inassimilable point of reference. In this precise sense, the subject "causes itself" by way of retroactively positing that X which [[acts]] as the object-cause of its desire. This loop is constitutive of the subject. That is, an entity that does not 'cause itself' is precisely not a subject but an object. <a name="4"></a><a href="#4x">4</a> However, one should avoid conceiving this assumption as a kind of symbolic integration of the decentred [[Real]], whereby the subject 'symbolizes', assumes as an act of its free [[choice]], the imposed trauma of the [[contingent]] [[encounter]] with [[the Real]]. One should always bear in mind that the status of the subject as such is [[hysterical]]: the subject 'is' only insofar as it confronts the enigma of <i>[[Che vuoi?]]</i> - "What do you [[want]]?" - insofar as the Other's desire remains impenetrable, insofar as the subject doesn't [[know]] what kind of object it is for the Other. Suspending this decentring of the cause is thus strictly equivalent to what Lacan called "[[subjective]] destitution", the de- hystericization by means of which the subject loses its status as subject.<br><br> The most elementary matrix of fantasy, of its temporal loop, is that of the "impossible" [[gaze]] by means of which the subject is [[present]] at the act of his/her own conception. What is at stake in it is the enigma of the Other's desire: by means of the fantasy-[[formation]], the subject provides an answer to the question, 'What am I for my [[parents]], for their desire?' and thus endeavours to arrive at the 'deeper meaning' of his or her [[existence]], to discern the Fate involved in it. The reassuring lesson of fantasy is that "I was brought [[about]] with a special [[purpose]]".<a name="5"></a><a href="#5x">5</a> Consequently, when, at the end of [[psychoanalytic treatment]], I "[[traverse]] my [[fundamental fantasy]]", the point of it is not that, instead of being bothered by the enigma of the Other's desire, of what I am for the [[others]], I "subjectivize" my fate in the sense of its [[symbolization]], of recognizing myself in a symbolic network or [[narrative]] for which I am fully [[responsible]], but rather that I fully assume the uttermost [[contingency]] of my being. The subject becomes 'cause of itself' in the sense of no longer [[looking]] for a [[guarantee]] of his or her existence in [[another]]'s desire.<br><br> Another way to put it is to say that the "subjective destitution" changes the register from desire to drive. Desire is historical and subjectivized, always and by definition [[unsatisfied]], metonymical, shifting from one object to another, since I do not actually desire what I want. What I actually desire is to sustain desire itself, to postpone the dreaded moment of its [[satisfaction]]. Drive, on the other hand, involves a kind of inert satisfaction which always finds its way. Drive is non-subjectivized ("acephalic"); perhaps its paradigmatic expressions are the repulsive private [[rituals]] (sniffing one's own sweat, sticking one's finger into one's nose, etc.) that bring us intense satisfaction without our being aware of it-or, insofar as we are aware of it, without our being able to do anything to prevent it.<br><br> In Andersen's fairy tale <i>The Red Shoes</i>, an impoverished young [[woman]] puts on a pair of magical shoes and almost dies when her feet won't stop dancing. She is only saved when an executioner cuts off her feet with his axe. Her still-shod feet dance on, whereas she is given wooden feet and finds peace in religion. These shoes stand for drive at its purest: an 'undead' [[partial]] object that functions as a kind of impersonal willing: 'it wants', it persists in its [[repetitive]] movement (of dancing), it follows its path and exacts its satisfaction at any price, irrespective of the subject's well-being. This drive is that which is 'in the subject more than herself': although the subject cannot ever 'subjectivize' it, assume it as 'her own' by way of saying 'It is I who want to do this!' it nonetheless operates in her very kernel. <a name="6"></a><a href="#6x">6</a> As Fink's book reminds us, Lacan's wager is that it is possible to [[sublimate]] this dull satisfaction. This is what, ultimately, art and religion are about. <br><br> <font size="2">This paper was first published in the <i>Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and [[Society]]</i> 1 (1996), 160-61, as a review of [[Bruce Fink]]'s <i>The Lacanian Subject: Between [[Language]] and Jouissance</i> (Princeton: Princeton [[University]] Press, 1995).<br><br> [[Notes]]:<br><br> <a name="1x"></a><a href="#1">1</a> See [[Jacques Lacan]], <i>[[The Seminar]] of Jacques Lacan XI: The Four Fundamental [[Concepts]] of [[Psychoanalysis]]</i>, 1964, ed. Jacques-[[Alain]] [[Miller]], trans. Alan [[Sheridan]] (New York: W.W. Norton, 1977), 263-76. <br><a name="2x"></a><a href="#2">2</a> See Jacques Lacan, <i>The Seminar of Jacques Lacan XX: On Feminine [[Sexuality]], the Limits of Love and [[Knowledge]], 1972-73 ([[Encore]])</i>, ed. [[Jacques-Alain Miller]], trans. Bruce Fink (New York: W.W. Norton, 1998), 64-89.<br><a name="3x"></a><a href="#3">3</a> It is at this point that Peter Dews' attempt to enlist the Lacanian problematic of 'love beyond Law' into his [[project]] of the '[[return]] to meaning' (see his <i>The Limits of Disenchantment</i>, [[London]] and New York: Verso, 1996) falls short: it has to overlook the radical incompatibility of 'love beyond Law' and the field of meaning - i.e., the fact that within the Lacanian conceptual edifice, 'love beyond Law' entails the eclipse of meaning in <i>jouis-sense</i>.<br> <a name="4x"></a><a href="#4">4</a> As to this paradoxical status of trauma, see Slavoj [[Zizek]], <i>Metastases of [[Enjoyment]]: Six Essays on Woman and [[Causality]]</i> (London and New York: Verso, 1994), 29-53.<br> <a name="5x"></a><a href="#5">5</a> We can see, now, in what precise sense a [[pervert]] lives his fantasy: in clear contrast to the [[hysteric]] ([[neurotic]]), the pervert doesn't have any [[doubt]] as to what he is for the [[big Other]]'s desire: he is the [[instrument]] of the Other's enjoyment. A simple, but nonetheless poignant, expression of this [[perverse]] attitude is found in Hugh Hudson's <i>Chariots of Fire</i>, when the devout Eric Liddel explains his fast running which brought him a gold medal at the 1924 [[Paris]] Olympics: "God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His [[pleasure]]."<br><a name="6x"></a><a href="#6">6</a> One should mention here Michael Powell's <i>The Red Shoes</i>, a suicidal variation of the same motif. At the end of the [[film]], the shoes the young ballerina is wearing also take on a [[life]] of their own. However, since there is no one there to cut her legs off the shoes carry the ballerina out onto a high balcony from which she is [[forced]] to leap onto the railroad tracks where she is hit by a train. The crucial thing this cinematic version adds to Andersen's fairy tale is the opposition between the '[[partial drive]]' embodied in the shoes and the normal [[sexual]] desire, i.e., the [[girl]]'s sexual interest in her partner.<br> ==TWO==
"Love beyond Law" involves a "[[feminine]]" [[sublimation]] of [[drive]]s into love.
Love is no longer merely a narcissistic (mis)recognition to be opposed to desire as the subject's 'truth' but a unique case of direct asexual sublimation (integration into the order of the signifier) of drives, of their jouissance'', in the guise of the asexual Thing experienced in the ecstatic surrender.
[One should always bear in mind that the status of the subject as such is hysterical: the subject 'is' only insofar as it confronts the nigma of ''Che vuoi?'' - "What do you want?" - insofar as the Other's desire remains impenetrable, insofar as the subject doesn't know what kind of object it is for the Other.
Suspending this [[decentering ]] of the cause if thus strictly equivalent to what Lacan called "[[subjective destitution]]," the de-hystericization by means of which the subject loses its status as subject.
[The most elementary [[matrix ]] of fantasy, of its [[temporal ]] loop, is that of the "[[impossible]]" gaze by means of which the subject is present at the act of his/her own conception.
What is at stake in it is the enigma of the Other's desire: by means of the fantasy-formation, the subject provides an answer to the question, "What am I for my parents, for their desire?" and thus endeavors to arrive at the "deeper meaning" of his or her existence, to discern the Fate involved in it. The reassuring lesson of fantasy is that "I was brought about with a special purpose."
Consequently, when, at the end of psychoanalytic treatment, I "traverse my fundamental fantasy," the point of it is not that, instead of being bothered by the enigma of the Other's desire, of what I am for the others, I "subjectivize" my fate in the sense of its symbolization, of recognizing myslef in a symbolic network or narrative for which I am fully responsible, but rather that I fully assume the uttermost contingency of my being.
The subject becomes "cause of itself" in the sense of no longer looking for a guarantee of his or her existence in another's desire.
The "subjective destitution" changes the [[register ]] from desire to drive.
Desire is historical and subjectivized, always and by definition unsatisfied, metonymical, shifting from one object to another, since I do not actually desire what I want.
What I actually desire is to sustain desire itself, to postpone the dreaded moment of its satisfaction.
The drive is an 'undead' [[partial object ]] that functions as a kind of impersonal willing: 'it wants', it persists in its repetititve movement, it follows its path and exacts its satisfaction at any price, irrespective of the subject's well-being.
This drive is that which is 'in the subject more than herself': although the subject cannot ever 'subjectivize' it, assume it as 'her own' by way of saying 'It is I who want to do this!' it nonetheless operates in her very kernel.
==Source==
* [[Love beyond Law]]. ''Centre for [[Theology ]] and [[Politics]].'' 1996. <http://www.theologyandpolitics.com/Files/Zizek%20CTP%20Love%20beyond%20Law.pdf>. Also listed on ''[[Lacan.com]]''. <http://www.lacan.com/zizlola.htm>.
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Slavoj Žižek]]
