On Tue, 17 Oct 2000 kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca wrote:
> Zizek & co. are interesting in the entwinement of identity, enjoyment
> and desire, how certain configuations of identity sustain themselves.
> This seems to me to be one of the most important questions for theory
> today: why do people remain religious after the critique of
> religion... how does nationalism sustain itself...
Identity does not "sustain itself"; identity is a social imperative. We have to maintain a constant identity to function as units in the social structures like school, prison, and the corporation. Above all else be a stable type: whether we're discussing religious affiliation, nationalism, sexual identity, race, gender, the stability of the identity category is a product of social relations, not a psychological product of the subject.
For instance, gender. Gender is produced in and sustained by social relations in the family (among other social institutions). In turn, dominant gender role expectations stabilize family structures and other social institutions that sustain male dominance. We need no "deep" psychodynamic explanation for why gender identity "sustains itself"; the stability of gender identity is a necessary product of social relations in a patriarchal society.
My major beef with the "psychobabble" as ken puts it is this: the more abstract the theorizing about the unconscious and desire, the more attention tends to be shifted away from the issues of power and social relations I emphasize above.
Miles