The main problem with Civilization and Its Discontents, usually perceived as Freud's final major work, is that it was written in 1930. The book's treaThe main problem with Civilization and Its Discontents, usually perceived as Freud's final major work, is that it was written in 1930. The book's treatment of civilization is very much through an old-style Westocentric anthropological kind of lens, dividing people into "primitive" and "civilized" peoples, making generalized statements about what "primitive" peoples do and believe, etc. Freud for example portrays "primitive" society as one in which the death drive is uninhibited, in which humans' natural tendency towards aggressiveness is allowed to flourish. However, historically we know that the beginnings of civilization actually brought more violence rather than less. Hunter-gatherer societies tend to be minimally hierarchical and based on voluntary associations between people, whereas the first state societies in Mesopotamia were characterized by violent hierarchy, subordination of women, widespread slavery, constant internal and external political violence, etc. I think that psychoanalysis has profound implications for history and politics, and Freud's approach here is admirable, but it just hasn't aged well....more
In How to Read Lacan, Slavoj Žižek attempts to introduce Lacan differently than most authors. While Bruce Fink introduces Lacan through a methodical eIn How to Read Lacan, Slavoj Žižek attempts to introduce Lacan differently than most authors. While Bruce Fink introduces Lacan through a methodical explication of Lacan's major concepts, Žižek instead attempts to weave Lacan's thought through a number of cultural and political examples. His even greater goal is to demonstrate the necessity of Lacanian psychoanalysis for ethical thought (perhaps a foolhardy goal in only 120 pages). The result is .... mixed. As an introduction to Lacan's thought, this isn't very useful. It flits from Lacanian concept to Lacanian concept often illustrating with one example. As a result, there's not the depth of explanation that you'd get from Bruce Fink for example. For a book attempting to demonstrate Lacan's necessity for the present moment, it is too short and vague. Žižek hints at political implications of Lacanian psychoanalysis but does not do them justice (at least partially because of the brevity of the book). That is the most seductive part of Žižek's thought -- that we can actually take from Lacanian psychoanalysis not just a clinical practice but a political practice. And yet one is left with more questions than answers....more
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (originally Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie) outlines Freud's theory of sexuality. Freud begins by examiniThree Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (originally Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie) outlines Freud's theory of sexuality. Freud begins by examining so-called "sexual aberrations" (homosexuality [termed inversion], fetishism, s/m, pedophilia, and bestiality), arguing that they neither result from "degeneracy" nor are they innate. Instead, Freud looks for their roots in infantile sexuality. Freud argues that infants are "polymorphously perverse", and only through repression and sublimation do they come to "normal" heterosexual genital-oriented sexuality. This essentially was the foundation of Freud's conception of sexuality that was so important to his work and thought.
However, Three Essays shows Freud at a somewhat transitional period in his work. Notably absent from this book is the Oedipus complex, which would play such a significant role in Freud's later thought and in successors like Lacan. Without key concepts like that, the way sexuality develops is a bit mysterious in this book. There's a lot of "we don't really know"s and "we need further investigation"s in this book (which I guess gets points for honesty?). There's also a lot of sexist assumptions that aren't confronted in the book; in a sense the book refuses to go to its own conclusions. ...more
I read this, then put it away, then read it again, then put it away, then read it again, and I've finally achieved a solid conclusion: this book is gaI read this, then put it away, then read it again, then put it away, then read it again, and I've finally achieved a solid conclusion: this book is garbage. As the title states, The Fragile Absolute is an argument that the "Christian legacy" is worth fighting for, that it has a radical kernel that should be cherished and protected against the dual forces of Christian fundamentalism and (presumably) liberal secularism. Now a good half of the book has more or less nothing to do with this argument. On first glance this is a disorganized mess of a book, starting with a thesis and refusing to argue for it for 100 or more pages. On closer examination, Žižek does actually back up his thesis. The crux of his argument seems to be that there is something radical about St. Paul's notion of agape (frequently glossed as love), that Paul suggests that we can reach universality and "unplug" from social systems through agape, perhaps similar to how communism attempts a sort of universality that will wash away national, racial, gendered, etc. distinctions. Žižek ends with an extended metaphor from The Shawshank Redemption: he likens radical political projects to the sublime music the prisoners hear in that movie, that we must fight for the glimpses of the Beyond of capitalism.
I have two main problems with this. The first is an issue with the universality and the second is an issue with Žižek's politics that I can glean from this book. Žižek suggests that the radical core of Christianity is its attempts at universality:
"Christianity (and, in its own way, Buddhism) introduced into this global balanced cosmic Order a principle that is totally foreign to it, a principle which, measured by the standards of pagan cosmology, cannot but appear as a monstrous distortion: the principle according to which each individual has immediate access to universality (of nirvana, of the Holy Spirit, or, today, of human Rights and freedoms): I can participate in this universal dimension directly, irrespective of my special place within the global social order. For that reason, Buddha's followers form a community of people who, in one way or another, have broken with the hierarchy of the social order and started to treat it as fundamentally irrelevant: in his choice of disciples, Buddha pointedly ignored castes and (after some hesitation, true) even sexual difference. And do not Christ's scandalous words from Saint Luke's Gospel point in the same direction: 'If anyone come to me and does not hate his father and his mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters - yes, even his own life - he cannot be my disciple' (14: 26). Here, of course, we are not dealing with a simple brutal hatred demanded by a cruel and jealous God: family relations stand here metaphorically for the entire sociosymbolic network, for any particular ethnic 'substance' that determines our place in the global Order of Things. The 'hatred' enjoined by Christ is not, therefore, a kind of pseudo-dialectical opposite to love, but a direct expression of what Saint Paul, in Corinthians I 13, with unsurpassable power, describes as agape, the key intermediary term between faith and hope: It is love [agape] itself that enjoins us to 'unplug' from the organic community into which we were born - or, as Paul puts it, for a Christian, there are neither men nor women, neither Jews nor Greeks.... No wonder that, for those fully identified with the Jewish 'national substance', as well as for the Greek philosophers and the proponents of the global Roman Empire, the appearance of Christ was a ridiculous and/or traumatic scandal."
However, besides the fact that Žižek's sketch of "pagan" religions is essentially fiction, it is Christianity's grasp at universality that is one of its most heavily criticized features. See for example Indigenous philosopher Vine Deloria's critique of Christianity in God Is Red. If, after all, there are neither Jews nor Greeks under Christianity, then surely are there equally neither Anishinaabeg nor Lakota. Žižek may praise Christianity's universality, but it's difficult to praise its logical conclusion - the Catholic Church's operation of genocidal residential schools in Canada, the very goal of which was to eliminate the 'Indian-ness' of Indigenous people - as radical.
Furthermore, Žižek's politics that he derives from his central insight are simultaneously utopian and drearily reformist. Žižek never endorses any positive political projects in the book; all projects from liberal democracy to (especially) state socialism are decried as fundamentally failing to move beyond capitalism. What we are offered is the sort of post-leftist axiom that every revolutionary action should give us a glimpse of our ideal world. I'm not necessarily Ms. Pragmatist, but this is undeniably utopian. And yet Žižek argues that part of revolutionary politics is killing your darlings, as Sethe killed her child in Toni Morrison's Beloved. But what worth is a revolutionary politics that starts in a place of defeatism? What does that offer us? If we must give up the search for unalienated labour, what's the point?
I'd make a more elegant conclusion but basically this book is bad lol. Even if we accept Christianity has a radical core, what is the application of this? That we should incorporate Christianity into our politics? Again the problem of Christianity's missionary aspect comes up. What right does Žižek have to suggest we must extend the reach of Christianity in Turtle Island - assuredly a colonialist suggestion. I just do not get this book's purpose other than to be provocative....more
I tried reading this several times and couldn't make head or tail of it
EDIT: Having read numerous secondary sources on Lacan now (chiefly Bruce Fink'sI tried reading this several times and couldn't make head or tail of it
EDIT: Having read numerous secondary sources on Lacan now (chiefly Bruce Fink's books) I think I understand this a bit better and I have to say it's really good. Lacan's schema of sexuation is just genius and a maybe step forward in how we think sexual difference, not to mention his musings on language, knowledge, and jouissance. I'm gonna dock a star cuz it's just so hard to read but damn this is a wonderful seminar....more
maybe interesting if youre interested in the development of lacan's thought but has very little interest for someone interested in how marxism and lacmaybe interesting if youre interested in the development of lacan's thought but has very little interest for someone interested in how marxism and lacanian psychoanalysis can converge and supplement each other...more
I would say that you really need to read Bruce Fink's book The Lacanian Subject before you can really grasp this, but ultimately it's an incredibly vaI would say that you really need to read Bruce Fink's book The Lacanian Subject before you can really grasp this, but ultimately it's an incredibly valuable introduction to Lacanian psychoanalysis. My one criticism would be that it doesn't give enough examples from real-life clients. I'd love to see more how psychoanalysis can be practically used to help patients, which we don't see much of. But Fink is really like valuable beyond measure for Lacanianism because of his dual introductions (this and The Lacanian Subject) and his translations and annotations of Lacan's seminars. He's kind of an inspiring figure that I wanna emulate in my own academic work....more
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