On Thu, 23 Dec 1999 03:34:26 -0500 Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:
> >From Henry Staten, "'Radical Evil' Revived: Hitler, Kant, Luther,
> Neo-Lacanianism," _Radical Philosophy_ 98:
> [Lacan] places himself squarely in the line of descent that comes from
Luther's condemnation of the human will as -- apart from the inexplicable gift
of God's grace -- completely, inescapably corrupt. It is to Lacan's credit
that he, at least, makes no secret of the genealogy of his own stance; he
announces that he follows Paul, Augustine and Luther.
There is an important distinction here between Paul, Augustine and Luther and Lacan. Lacan grounds this "corruption" (the idea of a split subject) *politically* - in other words, Lacan's reading *requires* an ethical consciousness, whereas Paul, Augustine and Luther *negate* ethical consciousness and politics altogether in their appeal to a transcendental redemption. For Lacan, there is no salvation - so ethical consciousness remains intact - whereas our PAL's embark on an (illusionary) apolitical Heavenly journey. If this is a criticism of Lacan it also holds true for Nietzsche (genealogy of morals), Freud (the psyche is divided against itself), Marx (ruthless criticism of everything existing), Adorno (the whole is false), Butler (gender trouble), Derrida (deconstruction) et al. It would take a brave person indeed to say that they've achieved political self-transcendence without a single flaw. Talk about idealizations. The Lacanian reading here is a critique of transcendental idealism, without ditching the concept of evil as a *political* problematic.
So the reading presented above is fine and dandy if one wants to say "goodbye" to morality and politics by invoking a "reason that is before reason" (ie. the critique begs the question) (say hello to regressive Platonism).
joy to the world, the truth has come! ken