>Zizek is using the category is an extraordinarily technical sense. So I
>don't
>really see it as floppy, although one really has to dig through his work to
>find its limits. Postmodernism, for Zizek, is basically the symptom that we,
>as analysts of culture (so to speak), must engage (the postmodern makes a
>claim to lack nothing, which means that it is constituted by this very lack
>which it represses, it is sustained by its very denial of its constitutive
>elements).
and where are the borders of this -- I gather this is not being referred only to cultural production? that doesn't make a lot of sense to me -- presuming that postmodern means 'late modernity' oh sorry late capitalism and so on -- how exactly does it claim to lack nothing? where is this claim being made, and presuming that he means in postmodern art and so on then something a hell of a lot more specific than 'late modernity' or 'late capitalism' is involved
>By "reading" (there must be a better term for this) the symptoms,
what's wrong with reading? oh don't answer that, kelley's probably watching let's say analysing and be straight about it
>we
>are able to locate cause, and the way in which cause is "outdone" by the
>symptom and simultaneously how it insubstantiates the cause in
>itself. Kind of
>like a Hegelian sublation with a great deal of excess (the effect always
>outdoes the cause qua vanishing mediator). Fancy jargon, simply means that
>there is more to cause and effect that meets the eye, ie. contingency,
>folks.
>Zizek makes some pretty clear distinctions between modernism,
>post-structuralism, postmodernism and deconstruction.
The only Z text I really know is The Sublime Object... and I would have thought there were distinctions between some of these terms there, which is why the idea that 'it's all the same' for Zizek concerns and confuses me
>Derrida et al are
>deconstructionists, and I'm sure he'd include Butler in this category as
>well.
I can see something of that in some of her work, but it seems a little unfair given that it's not as formalist as Derrida. Post-structuralist perhaps, though I admit calling any devotee of Lacan a post-structuralist seems a little foolish.
>The Frankfurt School and the deconstructionists, who are "unmasking" the
>repressive potential of reason through the use of reason (something like
>that)
>are on the same side.
Ok you got me -- why is Adorno unmasking reason through reason...?
>Ironically, for Zizek, most modernists (like Habermas)
>are actually read as postmodernists and most postmodernists (like
>Derrida?) are
>read as modernists. It's a political strategy of hystericization. I'm
>convinced of this.
Well. The first point yes. Many people read as 'postmodernists' are certainly modernists if the term is to be descriptive of anything at all other than met Gertrude Stein or something like that. But... Derrida's a post-structuralist but how he is 'postmodern'. Leaving that aside (please) what does this have to do with hystericization. What exactly are you convinced of?
>Zizek is attempting to "traumatize" our dearly beloved
>categories. Of course, this often makes people suspicious of Zizek, because
>they like their world to function perfectly without thought or interuption.
Well trauma seems an unnecessary word for this, but yes it's true that people like their best-loved categories to be left alone. I can't resist -- which includes 'postmodern'.
>The fusing of the Real and the Symbolic is Lacan's definition of psychosis
>(Seminar III). It is a "bad thing" in the sense that it is completely
>unreflective, since reflection requires an intervention by the imaginary (ie.
>the ego). So we go to the movies, go shopping, go to work and feel good
>about
>ourselves. Then turn on the tube, edit some book review and pour a beverage,
>without a single reflective moment.
This is utterly incorrect. Isn't that a problem? And, while I'm talking about The Sublime Object, I never thought that was what Z was saying.
>Welcome to a paradise. For Zizek, it is
>not psychosis (perversion, paranoia and so on) that grants access to the
>uncs,
>rather, neurosis. In psychosis, there is no ethics, no responsibility - just
>blind and mechanical functioning. In neurosis, the subject is always
>screwed up
>and questioning, reflective (hysteric and so on).
Hang on, I thought it was unreflective... or neurosis is not postmodern? How is this useful? productive? what if I don't think there is any such thing as the unconscious at all or don't see access to the unconscious as being anything very important to seek after?
>So it is through neuroses
>that we have access to the uncs. In this way, normalacy is psychotic, and
>the
>unncanny is neurotic (I think)...
Within what you're saying I'm not sure how the uncanny can be neurotic. Unless you're saying it's reflective simply because always relative (to the familiar), which doesn't seem very Lacanian.
>Here's an example.
>
>"Doctor, it hurts when I twist my arm like this."
>
> "Then don't twist your arm like that."
>
>"I'm going to twist it all the way back!!!" "Yarrrghhhg!"
>
>This is an illustration of the damned if you do damned if you don't psychotic
>behaviour. The "patient" knows damn well that they shouldn't twist their arm,
>but they do it anyway. If you do as your told, you are simply following
>orders. If you do the opposite, you are simply inverting the ordering
>process.
>So the twisting your arm back all the way - is perversion, as is doing what
>your told to do. The "modernist" response would be something like a
>spark, an
>ignition that disappears, "Who are you to me, doctor?" "What does this
>mean?"
>For Zizek, the subject is the "but" inbetween these two statements: "I'll
>do as
>you say, but, I'm going to twist my arm all the way back."
This is way too much to be applied as symptomatic of an historical period, socio-cultural context, or generalised 'mode of subjectivity'. What's the point of this elaborate taxonomy in which modernists will say X and postmodernists will say Y in response to such a situation, given that people almost certainly arent confined to these options and these options are not periodisable in this way or assignable to context in this way...?
>The difference is this: mod and pomo mark two different ways of relating
>to the
>Other. In pomo, one might say, "Hey, that's the Other [which does not
>exist],
>what a contradiction, now I'm going on vacation." In mod, one might say, "My
>God? What the hell is that?" or pomo: "God does not exist and neither to I" -
>mod: "I belive in God, but I don't trust him!" Something like that
>anyway. It
>has everything to do with our relation to... something (hence, the
>appropriation of psychoanalysis).
Z uses the Other as reinvented by psychoanalysis. He's structured by it rather than appropriating it I would say, based on what I've read and what you're saying. I do think there are some really important coherences to what modernism does with the Other, and by this I mean a range of modes of cultural production including social and critical theory. But that still doesn't mean that a period or an immense range of social fields deployed the Other in the same way, or even that what the Other means to modernism is internally consistent or uniformly agreed upon or active in one dominant way. So why is such certainty about everyone everywhere being applied to the 'postmodern'? -- now don't talk to me about global media etc meaning we all share the same symbolic systems because that's just obviously wrong (witness, not only do I think the fuss about Elian is among the msot stupid incarnations of american pop culture I've ever seen, but even so I care so much more than the people around me it's scary) --and don't tell me it's just that by postmodern culture everyone just really mean 'America today', because I already knew that
> > >Basically, "we" and "our" mean nothing. He articulates them as empty
> > >signifiers. In Tarrying With the Negative he talks about the
> revolutionary
> > >difference between "We are a people" and "We are THE people." One is
> > >relativistic, fragmented, and substantial (and psychotic), the other
> empty,
> > >universal, and meaningless.
>
> > Haven't read this either -- is this different to Laclau on empty/political
> > signifiers?
>
>Nope. Zizek's The Sublime Object of Ideology is mirrored on Laclau and
>Mouffe's text (or is at least heavily indebted to it).
Ah well then I probably have a very skewed vision of Zizek. Well I have to go read some more, seeing as I'm meant to be teaching him some time quite soon. I'll get back to you on whether it makes any more sense to me.
>I'm not sure about your confusion. If the self is an Other, then doesn't it
>makes sense to say "We think" rather than "I think" ?
It's misleading because it's not in fact a claim to shared placement with one's audience.
>PS. if I haven't mentioned this: psychosis and neurosis, for Zizek, are
>interpreted to be "philosophical attitudes" - not clinical states of
>mind. So
>he's drawing heavily on a Hegelian interpretation of Lacan here, one which
>Jacques Alain-Miller promotes in Lacan but one which may or may not be in
>Lacan...
I don't think Lacan makes any such distinction so neatly. But then everyone tells me I just don't get Lacan at all -- appears to be a 'symptom' of disagreeing with something he said.
Thanks, Catherine ------------------------------------ Dr. Catherine Driscoll
Department of English University of Adelaide Adelaide SA 5005 AUSTRALIA
email: catherine.driscoll at adelaide.edu.au phone: 61-8 8303 5627 fax : 61-8 8303 4341 http://www.adelaide.edu.au/English/cdriscol.htm ------------------------------------