Of gods and vampires: an introduction to psychoanalysis

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Sun Oct 3 15:31:04 PDT 1999



>From: "christian a. gregory" <chrisgregory11 at email.msn.com>
>Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 14:19:55 -0500
>
>> In short: only psychoanalysis, thus far, grasps the paradox
>> of modern subjectivity as an absent centre.
>>
>> My point here isn't to lay down an authoritative groundwork
>
>Hunh? *Only* psychoanalysis does this, but this isn't a claim on an
>authoritative groundwork? That's only badly concealed authoritarianism
>(and, in that way, just like Joan Copjec). I mean, doesn't it strike you as
>funny that you have to trip over yourself to say that this isn't the final
>word? If it really weren't, if you really didn't believe in the superiority
>of one tradition over others, why would you say this?

Those who argue against 'authority' in any form in the interest of postmodern politics inevitably fall into a performative contradiction between what they want to argue and what they actually say. Lacan, despite himself, is the 'subject presumed to know.'


>You've just defined
>the most valuable tradition as the one that gives you what you say
>psychoanalysis gives you. (Well, only psychoanalysis gives us the absent
>center, and as everybody knows, that's self-evidently good or right or
>interesting or ethical or whatever . . .) Sounds utterly tautological to me,
>in fact, suspiciously like what you say about new age stuff: "'bad'
>theology - openly authoritarian or conservative frameworks which, without
>apology or explanation, assume the [superior] validity of one historical
>tradition in an ahistorical manner." Sheesh.

A specter of Heidegger's 'circular reasoning' haunts postmodernism (in all its varieties -- Lacanian psychoanalysis, Butler's performativity, deconstruction, Foucault's power, or whatnot):

***** But in fact there is no circle at all in the formulation of our question.... 'Presupposing' Being has the character of taking a preliminary look at Being in such a way that on the basis of this look beings that are already given are tentatively articulated in their Being. This guiding look at Being grows out of the average understanding of Being in which we are already involved _and which ultimately belongs to the essential constitution of Dasein itself_. Such 'presupposing' has nothing to do with positing a principle from which a series of propositions is deduced. A 'circle in reasoning' cannot possibly lie in the formulation of the question of the meaning of Being, because in answering this question it is not a matter of grounding in deduction but rather of laying bare and exhibiting the ground. (_Being and Time_) *****

Obviously, a preemptive denial of a criticism that one's reasoning is circular is not the same as demonstrating that it isn't. In "The Origins of the Work of Art," Heidegger takes an opposite but equally unconvincing tack to avoid the charge of circular reasoning: "Thus we are compelled to follow the circle. This is neither a makeshift nor a defect. To enter upon this path is the strength of thought, to continue on it is the feast of thought, assuming that thinking is a craft." What can we say to this sort of mystification? Nietzsche at least said, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself!" (or something to that effect). Nietzsche also sarcastically noted: "Everyone now knows that the ability to endure contradiction is a high sign of culture." A fitting and fittingly snide remark that ought to be applied to Heidegger and his timid offsprings.


>More importantly: what's so great about the absent center? Where
>does that get you, exactly? Who cares?

The 'absent center' probably is a good description of the concept of 'devotion' in Mishima Yukio's works, for instance. That it may very well sum up Mishima, however, is no excuse to elevate it to an explanation of something like 'human existence' (that left-Hegelians preserve through their negations). We have no reason to take a reactionary modernist framework to be a paradigm of our thoughts on evolving ensembles of social relations that human beings have been and are.

Yoshie



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