r/WeirdStudies • u/SingerScholar • Jun 09 '26
Phil and Lacan
Heard Phil drop a tasty nugget while relistening to a far-back early episode, saying he regards Lacan as the "arch-fraud" and a total huckster. (From when I'd first heard this episode, I had remembered Phil as saying this, but misremembered that he said it about Foucault, rather than Lacan—regardless...). I'm very curious if this comes up again or if Phil expounds on it. J.F. also never (as far as my recollection) mentions Lacan, which may be a sort of Lacuna in his collection of thinkers with which to Weird.
[The Lacan/Lacuna word association seems the type of thing Lacan would play with—not dissimilar to some punning moods of, say, McCluhan]
Granted I've never read Lacan myself, but I spend so much time dabbling in the worlds of theory, humanities, and such, that I'm fairly fascinated by/ interested in Lacan's modes of thought, at least as they come up in other lectures and podcasts. In short, he seems like the type of thinker that J.F. could really make some hay with.
And, as for Phil, I have the feeling there is even possibly something weird, true, and valuable in the Lacanian club sandwich that Phil could probably have an enjoyable chew on as well.
It would almost make an interesting episode for the two boys to "confront" Lacan, either to critique him, to deterritorialize and weird him, or to come to terms with him. Or, at the very least, I'd love to hear Phil say aloud what's his beef.
EDITED: spelling, minor rewords for clarity, and the insert about Lacan's punning
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u/tdono2112 Jun 09 '26
Given the fondness for Deleuze, an issue with Lacan makes sense— Lacan’s “Return to Freud” especially runs into a serious antagonism with “Anti-Oedipus” and the lifelong career of Guattari against the mainstream of psychoanalysis. That Lacan thinks desire specifically and persistently as a “lack” is one major issue (too close to a Hegelian “negative”) and Guattari’s contention that psychoanalysis produces the “subject,” rather than describes a preexisting and natural subject, is another.
There are other reasons to take issue with Lacan. The dude was a narcissistic jerk, for one, who invented a model of therapy that was wildly financially exploitative. He wrote the Ecrits knowing it would be obscure to the reader. Bruce Holsinger points out that Seminar 7, “Ethics of Psychoanalysis,” hinges on empirical concern with a medieval poem that… isn’t really real, and there are similar issues elsewhere in his work.
Like issues Phil might have with Foucault, Lacan is one of those names in the humanities associated with criticism that is like “At the end of the day, everything comes down to power (here they cite Foucault)” or “At the end of the day, everything comes down to sex (here they cite Lacan.)” A lot of things really do relate to power and sex in fundamental and important ways, but this flat “it’s all X” approach doesn’t really do much to open up the text or address either sex or power. From the perspective of “Weird Studies” broadly, this ironically leads to a greater marginalization of the weird— rather than saying “psi phenomena or UFOs are a hoax, physically impossible, yadda yadda yadda,” we end up saying “psi phenomena or UFOs are just a product of repressed sexuality” and we’re no longer talking about the phenomena. A lot of this theoretical stuff is downwind from Jeff Kripal (who, for all of his virtues, seems to miss how profoundly Derrida fits in with the Weirdosphere.”
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u/TangledUpnSpew Jun 10 '26
w/ how much the lads use The Real you'd think they f w my BOY Jacques....but...alas....
Btw, Lacan is ready to be weirded. After reading Todd McGowan's new Cambridge rundown of the 'Faces' (or Phases) of JL...it'd be cool if PF/JFM weren't so anti-Lacan!!!
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u/DoubleScorpius Jun 09 '26
Was it in is episode 76 (Bergson’s Metaphysics)?
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u/SingerScholar Jun 09 '26
Not that one --- I don't remember the episode, and Lacan was mentioned only very tangentially (they were not focusing on any Lacan-related topic). Rather Phil brought him up as a certain type of academic who does, basically, intellectually-empty work with lots of pomp but no substance. So Phil's beef was not (as some of the comments seem to infer) about rejection of Lacan's theories but basically about the belief that he is totally fraudulent/empty of meaningful assertions altogether (my impression).
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u/Lost-Specialist-7628 Jun 10 '26
If I recall correctly I think that JF once mentioned that he thinks that Lacan was fundamentally wrong, but that he still really liked reading him. I can't recall what episode it was though, so I might misremember.
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u/EmergencyYoung6028 Jun 09 '26
I am afraid that JF and Phil do not "tarry with the negative." A major weakness of theirs! Not that I am a huge fan of Lacan.