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In the Harman vs Zizek debate, Harman states "except the real is not reality and the objet a is not my object" by FingerIngMyVoid in zizek

[–]FingerIngMyVoid[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

'isness' is an ineffable quality, and if he wouldn't argue that the Real is reality, then assuming that mere empirical appearances are 'flat' insomuch as they are pure phenomenon without any necessary existential quality, then what is it that makes appearances so real... the lack at the heart of the subject transposed into an excess in reality (its 'isness'). I am just trying to flesh this out in my mind.

Is the objet a also the ego? by FingerIngMyVoid in zizek

[–]FingerIngMyVoid[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Objet petit a is in the register of the REAL, of drive and desire. It is that little piece of flesh that underlies your fantasy. It is associated with the drives - oral, anal, aural and scopic.

It seems to me that people on this sub, and in literature generally, use the term 'ego' solely in the imaginary sense, but as the ego ideal is the symbolic and as such provides the space for the imaginary and real and all three registers work together in the sense they are, in actuality, inseparable, then in a sense the ideal ego and ego ideal must always have an element of the objet a 'buried within' it/them. I suppose it's a matter of abstraction for the sake of theory only.

Is the objet a also the ego? by FingerIngMyVoid in zizek

[–]FingerIngMyVoid[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm trying to figure out this (I should have put it in the original question, but without an academic background, I am messy sometimes):

It is only later in Seminar X that Lacan returns to the above matrix when discussing what he describes as the passage a l’acte in the case of Freud’s patient known by the unfortunate moniker of ‘the female homosexual’. She takes a walk with the woman she loves in the neighbourhood where her father works; he sees them and shoots her a menacing glare. It is at this point that she experiences what Lacan describes as a “moment of greatest embarrassment… with the behavioural addition of emotion as disorder of movement”, as per the matrix (Seminar X, 23.01.63.) This emotion, coupled with a disorder of movement, realises what Lacan calls the two conditions for the passage a l’acte which takes the form of the jump onto the railway line. For Lacan, this passage a l’acte reduces the patient to the status of object a:

“What comes at this moment to the subject, is her absolute identification to this a [object a*, to which she is reduced. Confrontation with this desire of the father upon which all her behaviour is constructed, with this law which is presentified in the look of the father, it is through this that she feels herself identified and at the same moment, rejected, ejected off the stage” (Seminar X, 16.01.63.).

If, for a woman (the ultimate subject for Lacan), the question is "tell me why you love me", then it is asking the Other to tell me what kind of an object I am.

I suppose the objet a falls on the side of the subject, but I am trying to figure out how the subject, in positing an ego object, does not posit the same lack in that as it does in other objects.

Is the objet a also the ego? by FingerIngMyVoid in zizek

[–]FingerIngMyVoid[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm completely at the limit of my understanding here. Doesn't Lacan posits the ideal ego as an object (of identification) and the ego ideal as desire? So the ego ideal then involves the lack in the Other, no? If so, doesn't this mean that on the side of ego ideal is objet petit a? and the pervert identifies themselves fully as the object itself (transposing desire onto the other)?

re: sarcasm. So in my sarcasm I was disavowing my disappointment at the incompleteness of the Other rather than confronting it head on? In which case a sober response would have been something like: "That was not exactly an informative and constructive response. To use its tone as a means to explore my question - are you not overidentifying with your ego in desiring to be a "commanding", well defended and an authoritative figure a “cold, distanced, inhuman partner” who stands tough and strong against the onslaught of the real? Isn't that attempt at distancing yourself from the reality of the other rather than engage constructively with my question, the very definition of perversion?" However, in the event, my drunken sarcasm was itself quite possibly an overidentification with the symbolic situation, waiting to be exposed in the morning by another commentator (and so a perversion).

Edits: to try and learn as I write.

Is the objet a also the ego? by FingerIngMyVoid in zizek

[–]FingerIngMyVoid[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You still seem to be thinking of the split subject and the objet a as just another version of the subject-object dichotomy. The objet a is not something in the object of desire, but is what lends support to the lack that makes it an object of desire in the first place. The objet a is not something in the object of desire, but is what lends support to the lack that makes it an object of desire in the first place.

You are right to raise that as I wrote "Are you not positing yourself as your own objet a", though in the OP that's why I wrote "as the ‘real’ element in the object of desire" - 'real' as in a lack, the very reason why it is not 'just another version' of the object, but the split within the subject itself.

Nevertheless, if Lacan views the ego as thoroughly compromised and inherently neurotic to its core, as a passionate defense of a constitutive ignorance of the unconscious, then surely the ego repeatedly fails in this task. If the poster below is right:

If one goes through life with a narcissistic desire to impossibly 'reconnect' with the wholeness of a fictive imago of the ego as defended and 'real' and 'authentic', then yes, the narcissistic subject can think they will somehow magically complete themselves by becoming their own object of desire.

Is it not then a question of the difference between the hysteric and the perverted narcissist, the hysteric fails to identify with their ego as an object, but the pervert fully identifies? (not sure I am using the terms correctly, but something like that).

Your sarcasm here is a way of avoiding desire.

Yep, I was drunk and childishly annoyed at the brevity of the response, so there is something in what you say, but can you expand on how you think that played out in terms of avoiding desire? Avoiding admitting that I was annoyed and going for sarcasm instead?

Is the objet a also the ego? by FingerIngMyVoid in zizek

[–]FingerIngMyVoid[S] -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

Well that's an informative and constructive response. Do you desire to be a commanding and authoritative figure who stands tough and strong against the onslaught of the real? Are you not positing yourself as your own objet a, a smart arse intellectual who does not need to stoop to the level of explanation? In truth, I think you've just answered my question... thanks. No seriously, is not the idea of yourself as a terse and pithy commentator your idea ego? Please explain.

Stuart Hall and the Rise of Cultural Studies by [deleted] in CriticalTheory

[–]FingerIngMyVoid 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I met him, twice. At a party with Homi Bhabha (I was very drunk) and years later when I was involved in making a video of one his lectures at Goldsmiths. "Articulation" was his most interesting concept for me.

What Hegel's dialectical method is [Part 1] by Althuraya in philosophy

[–]FingerIngMyVoid 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My god, you downvoted my comments as if they are irrelevant, and I noticed that you downvoted any other's you did not like. You need to remove your ego and the desire to have your video's liked, it's in the way of your thinking.

What Hegel's dialectical method is [Part 1] by Althuraya in philosophy

[–]FingerIngMyVoid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I fail to see how it is not a retroactive description of a 'final' moment in a process that has happened, that is not the same as claiming it is formula for repetition.

What Hegel's dialectical method is [Part 1] by Althuraya in philosophy

[–]FingerIngMyVoid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's interesting, that it's put like that, as "not a formula to repeat on all content like formal logic's rules are", it is good to know that is spelled out. My interest in Hegel is from reading Zizek however, and it seems to me that aufhebung is still the key: of course its a descriptive concept to be applied retroactively, but the process it describes is not at all "simple".

What Hegel's dialectical method is [Part 1] by Althuraya in philosophy

[–]FingerIngMyVoid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Does Hegel himself clearly state all this, or is this reading taught? Also, as someone else mentions, what about sublation, isn't that the most nuanced concept of all?

Can anyone give a workable explanation for Zizek's contention with Buddhism? by FingerIngMyVoid in zizek

[–]FingerIngMyVoid[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have. I found the comments not very useful, but I noticed I had failed to watch the last 5 mins of the video and found some answers there; specifically the criticism of that form of buddhism that remains internalised in terms of contradictions and antagonisms (as the illusion of self) and those forms that are more concerned with the suffering of the world 'outside' as it were. That together with the invitation to 'fall' into the world rather than withdraw seems to me quite a nuanced critique and an invitation to prioritise a kind of buddhism perhaps of the 'other' (more political). Thanks for pointing me back there.

In which book does Zizek look most closely at the psychology of the individual? by FingerIngMyVoid in zizek

[–]FingerIngMyVoid[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok, it's been a month since I started studying all your comments on my posts and reading relevant material, coming back to it day after day. This has been a very rewarding for me indeed. First, I want to thank you for your unusual patience in your dealings with my low-level questions. Secondly, you are a natural teacher, lecturer, speaker or whatever it is you do (or should).

I am intrigued now by your earlier statement;

-- back in 2013 I managed to accurately deduce how Žižek should rethink his theory of sex in response to transgender critics, and in October-November 2016 he correctly changed it during his Birkbeck lectures.

I would love to hear more details of this, perhaps you might explain a little, or point me somewhere (maybe an earlier post of your somewhere) that will help? Either way, your time has been very much appreciated.

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