Product Description
On Bruce Fink's The Lacanian Subject (1996) and Lacan's "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience" (1949).
What is the self? Is that the same as the experiencing subject? Lacan says no: while the self (the ego) is an imaginative creation, cemented by language, the subject is something else, something split (at least initially) between consciousness and the unconscious. Lacan mixes this Freudian picture with semiotics--an emphasis on systems of linguistic symbols--using this to both create his picture of the psyche and explain how psychological disorders arise.
We try to make sense of this complex picture as presented by American psychoanalyst Fink and complain about Lacan's language as they wade into the nearly impenetrable writing of the Frenchman himself. Featuring the alienation of language! Eruptions into consciousness! Undifferentiated needs! "The Real" opposing "reality!" A baby preening in front of a mirror! Castration! And introducing the mysterious "object a!" Read more about the topic and get the texts.
Listen to the episode preview. Become a PEL Citizen and get your free copy here. Read more about our vintage episodes.
Running Time: 2 hrs., 19 min. Recorded: March 17, 2013. Participants: Mark, Wes, Seth, Dylan.
As a bonus, your purchase includes high-bitrate mp3 of "Something Else" by Madison Lint (2002).
Cecilia –
I heard the episode and they were like 10 min complaining of the encrypted language Lacan uses to express himself. We’ve talked about at college many times and there’s an explanation. Let me tell you something, it’s not a critic it’s mere information (from someone who graduated from a University specialized in Freud and Lacan and works as a psychoanalist). I read Freud and Lacan and let me tell you his theory is much clearer than Freud’ once you truly understand him, in fact he only develops a reading of Freud that makes his theory, in my view, much easier to understand and grasp. The reason he used this type of speech is because he didn’t want to be read or studied by whoever wanted to read him lightly. First of all, it’s absolutely impossible to read and understand his theory if you are not a psychoanalyst or at least you know Freud’s theory deeply, as his teaching is a resignification of Freud, nothing else. Second, Lacan is not supposed to be read by yourself, alone, in a room, without a guide. You need the help of a teacher or a specialist to decrypt what he means all the time as what he says has typically layers and layers of meaning and interpretation. As Freud, he researched for over 40 years so it’s necessary to know which Lacan you’re reading (it’s obvious he will add or change things from his previous theories as he deepens his views). So, what you did in this podcast, to read one text out of the blue without a sound psychoanalytical background on Freud and Lacan, is exactly what he wanted to avoid and why you had so many difficulties understanding him. People who talk about Lacan spend years and years reading him and doing seminars. I remember in class we could be two hours reading and debating one paragraph (even one sentence!), And the teachers were psychoanalysts with a great background. I think it took me two or three years of reading and reading and doing seminars and attending lectures to understand him (and I had already gone through Freud of course). To understand one phrase such us: the unconscious is structured as a language or to understand the notion of the subject in Lacan, you need to handle very well other notions such as narcissism, Freud’s metapsychology, the three registers, Saussure, etc etc. So I think this is not the best format to discuss Lacan. I know it’s just general I for people who know nothing about him, but Lacan Is not supposed to be read or understood if you know nothing. Maybe this format could work for other authors but not for him. And one last thing: imaginary is not an illusion (in fact illusions can be more related to the irruption of the object from the real)… and we don’t talk about agency in psa. Agency is the kind of word from American psychoanalysis that Lacan was very critical about. Regards!
Mark Linsenmayer –
Thanks. Not sure if you’re just cruising the Internet for Lacan stuff or actually familiar with our podcast.
You overlook the fact that we have a psychoanalyst-in-training in the group (Wes) and in fact used a guide (Fink) to get us through this. We also just did a Saussure episode, and have a lot of background in the philosophy (if not the psychoanalysis) that he’s pulling from (Hegel). So we hardly “know nothing” here.
Moreover, I think plenty of “people who talk about Lacan” actually don’t spend years and years reading him; he’s rather in vogue among the leftists who like Zizek et al, so I think it’s legitimate for us to try to figure out why that is the case and whether such people are just being pretentious (which by your analysis here, they are). I’m not sure why you would see his purposeful obscuritanism as defensible, though. Far from keeping out the ignorant dabblers, the effect seems to have been to attract the pretentious. Be unclear, and you’re bound to be misunderstood.
But I absolutely take your point re. our difficulties. Whether wisely or not, both eps 202 and 203 will be returning to this area via a close reading of Kristeva, so you can see whether those attempts are as fruitless as this one apparently was! Best, -Mark