Changes

  [[Jacques Lacan]] posits a distinction between [[human beings ]]s and other animals[[animal]]s, that is, between 'human society' and 'animal society'.<ref>S1 p.223</ref> The basis of this distinction is [[language]]; humans [[human]]s have [[language]], whereas animals [[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 [[naturenauture]] and [[culture]] ([[culture ]] being, in Lacanian [[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]]. 

 The regulation of [[kinship ]] by the [[incest]] [[taboo]] points to the fact that the [[paternal function]] is at the heart of the rift between humans [[human]]s and animals[[animal]]s. 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]]. 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]]. [[Lacan]] 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]]. 

 [[Lacan ]] thus argued that 'the Freudian discovery teaches us that all natural harmony in man is profoundly disconcerted."<ref>S3. 83</ref>THere 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]]. 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 ]] [[instinctinstincts]]s are relatively invariable, [[human ]] [[sexuality]] is governed by [[drive]]s which are extremely variable and do not aim at a [[biology|biological]] function.