> For a Marxist angle on this, you might check out Cornelius Castoriadis...
> I've long intended so to do, Ken. But still can't see how you so confidently
build this Lacanian fragmentation thesis on so modest a foundation. It still
relies on the positing of a 'lost' something that was never there, for mine.
That's exactly it. The "lost" object was never possessed. It is imagined. Ever flip a coin with someone, where the resulting toss will determine who sweeps the floor? Isn't it strange how the winner will sometimes feel guilty about having won? Why is that? Why would someone feel guilty about the causality of chance? Because the winner lost something in the toss. The winner lost losing. But this loss *only* appears as a loss *after* the coin toss. It literally did not exist until they won.
Now consider "self-consciousness" or the proverbial "age of reason." Once achieved, there is a loss, a loss of innocence? A loss of childhood? A loss of being close to something? We've got countless movies and metaphors about this, that something, something that we never possessed, appears lost in retrospect.
At the same time, we compensate for this apparent loss - we cover over the gap: I lost nothing, this is perfect, you complete me. We "pretend" that nothing was lost (which just happens to be the truth!) but in doing this we deceive ourselves, because no object can plug the chasm that constitutes our subjectivity. I don't see how this is all that surprising. Our identity is constituted by language, language is fundamentally limited, esp. with regards to expressing certain things... say... dreams for instance. Language chances, or transforms, the experience, the image, the perception... into something else. But what does this say about a subject who constitutes and depends on language to express themself? There can be nothing other than a perceived missing piece. Take for example the saying, "that would have been fun, i wish i could have gone too." This expresses the loss, the lost potential of that which could have been different (which is precisely what Adorno argued --> the preponderance of the object is the tragic dimension of failed possibility). This missed opportunity, failed potential... is counted as a loss, a lack... Even if Lacan's theory leaves something to be desired (and it does, literally!), there is some truth to it - how else can such dominant metaphors, themes, tropes and such be explained? The thing is, very few theoretical frameworks take the implications of this seriously. It is no wonder the Lacan was first picked up in literary studies and flim theory - because his work resonates powerfully with these artistic creations. Economics is a different thing, to be sure, but let me ask you this: how is it that the ubiquitous theme of loss in art has no bearing whatsoever to economics or political economy? I think it is relevant. Isn't the entire profit system based on a logic of lost objects? (take, for example, when measuring revenue, what counts and what doesn't count --> potential revenue is *always* determined as the maximum, to which actual revenue is compared. Why is that? The result, of course, is that even with staggering profits, the corporation appears to have lost out on valuable potential and with the Marquis de Sade the corporations cry "One more effort!" [in the attempt to achieve all that has been lost] (which is Lacan's definition of perversion).
> If both the object and the subject are absent that is because they don't
humanly have separate being. We're the relation of the two, is perhaps the
simplest way of putting it. And that's not an absence - and it's not a
fragmentation - although it could be a contradiction ...
You've hit on something important here. If subjectivity is the presence of subject and object, then, in fact, the postmoderns are probably right about the a good many things, since subjectivity would entail massive fragmentation. The subject would be, literally, substance (in the Hegelian sense). With the subject as substance, it implies that each subject is constituted by its material determinants. In effect, freedom and autonomy become impossible (ie. the subject would be the result or product of material determinism). Freedom only makes sense if the substance is negated. And for my bets, this can only be accomplished by the subject. So instead of locus of self-consciousness being subject & object, the subject is the lack of both - which is what gives subject its negating power. The subject is split, between substance and this radical negativity. Freedom emerges, then, out of the negation of substance - the negation of necessity - which then becomes constitutive of the subject as necessity (this is how freedom can be explained as necessary).
Have you seen the movie, Eye of the Beholder? Interesting scene near the end. The two characters share something: the woman has lost her father, the man has lost his daughter. They shared their loss. What they have in common is that which is lacking. The misrecognition, in the movie, is that this somehow forms a "complete" couple - which is why the movie ends tragically. The Lacanian is this: love is when we share what we do not possess, in other words, we share our loss - which exceeds a particular lost object, rather, is constituted of the subject as such.
tarrying with the negative, ken