>>In other words (and pace Steven Pinker), there is no inborn
>>"language instinct." There are, of course, genetic conditions that
>>have to be met for a living being to be able to speak; but one
>>actually starts to speak and enters the symbolic universe only in
>>reacting to a traumatic jolt. And the mode of this reacting - the
>>fact that, in order to cope with a trauma, we symbolize - is not
>>"in our genes."
>
>And this is where I foolishly hoped Zizek might satisfy my Desire.
>The Lacanian virtuoso actually waves his wand over the terrain of
>biology; so rather than lightly hopping from biology to
>psychoanalysis, I hoped he'd say something more provocative about
>links between the two. Because one thing that's always interested
>me about Lacanian analysis (and why I don't think the whole project
>can just be dismissed "from a materialist perspective"), is the
>theory's grounding in the uniqueness of human biology.
>
>The Real is based on the anatomical incompleteness, the biological
>"prematurity" (compared to the present-from-birth instincts of other
>species) of human babies; on the motor unco-ordination, unease,
>organic dependence on others etc. experienced by these
>not-yet-subjects, these aggregates of organs, sensations, impulses,
>zones, etc.
>
>Baby humans are of course born this way as the product of their
>species having biologically evolved into "naturally" symbolic,
>social, creatures. This symbolic evolution made humans more open
>and "undetermined," and made their childhoods exceptionally long,
>more biologically and psychically "traumatic" and more deeply
>dependent on the social/family formations they're born into.
Why should dependence necessarily be experienced as "traumatic," though? Isn't it the capitalist ensemble of social relations (which make "Freedom, Equality, Property, and Bentham" the rule) that makes dependence -- which in itself can be a _pleasurable_ condition -- "traumatic" for many? In other words, isn't the "trauma" (or stigma) of dependence a historically-bound experience? These are questions that have important implications for feminism & disability rights.
Have you read Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych"? How about Jane Austen's _Mansfield Park_?
Yoshie