On Tue, 17 Oct 2000 09:35:46 -0700 (PDT) Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:
> So there is some substrate of fractured, "true" identity behind the iron fist
of social norms?
Every single thing I've ever posted to the list contradicts the idea that there is some "true" identity hiding behind the mask. The subject is "no-thing" - it is nothing more then self-relating negativity. As far as I can tell, this idea, which is Hegelian, is preserved almost completely in Marx. Maybe someone on the list can find a passage. Identity is transient, mediated... its essence is this very mediation which is *always* an experience of negation. Each new experience is an experience precisely because it contradicts something prior to it, in other words, experience itself has a negative character. This negation is subjectivity which is not to be confused with the substance that is negated.
> Then why does everyone I know identify themselves as a unified, stable
type--race, gender, religious affiliation, political affiliations, and so on?
For political reasons. Ask everyone that you know if being a member of one specific gender or another exhausts their identity.
> This is like that infuriating psychodynamic idea of repression--If the client
says no, it must mean yes.
No means no. This says nothing.
> The social fact is this: we are socially constrained to be unitary subjects.
And yet we are not.
> Is there some "true" fragmented subjectivity before this violence, some pure
psychic realm corrupted by social forces?
No.
> You obviously assume there is; I don't see anyway of providing evidence for
your claim (but I've noticed the charisma tends to trump evidence among
psychoanalytic theorists).
Sigh. Psychoanalysis isn't a science - because it does not admit of simple "true/false" distinctions. If anything, it is more like phronesis.
> I honestly don't understand--what is the point of this speculation about
unconscious processes?
Because people suffer. And investigation into why / how people suffer sometimes actually transforms this trauma into common misery. These unconscious processes play an tremendous role in how we act and in how we think. Reflecting on this seems to me to be entirely worthwhile.
ken