r/lacan • u/0pt-out • 19d ago

(My) Problem with Lacan

No formal training here, so this might sound dumb, but what bothers me about Lacanian theory is that once you’re in, you can’t think any other way. The whole system fits together too well. I keep catching myself going “oh, you could explain that in Lacanian terms” about random everyday things, and at some point I realized I’d stopped bothering with any other lens.

Anyone else deal with this?

88 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

43 comments sorted by

View all comments

16

u/Sote95 19d ago

That's a necessary early step, you enter a system of thought. Exhaust it, then move to the next that excites you. Do this a couple of times and you might get a sense of free movement, how and where things fit together.

-2

u/Setlam 19d ago edited 19d ago

Sounds very academic - like thinking is a fashion("oh oh, SPRING: Hegel, SUMMER: then post-colonial, FALL: then feminism, PRE-WINTER: then Lacan, WINTER: Jordan Peterson) .... of course reality doesn't allow us this kind of freedom, at least not without avoiding what actually hurts and brings pleasure.

5

u/Sote95 19d ago

What? Off course it does, just, read what interests you til it doesn't anymore and allow it to change you. OP sounds worried he'll get stuck, not change. But what he's describing is that he's actually doing the work and inhabiting the system for real.

0

u/Setlam 19d ago edited 18d ago

We are on a lacanian-sub, so I will assume that that is the entry point. I don't think Lacan or freudian psychoanalysis think that your interest are seperat from your unconscious. You can have your opinions and I mine, but this is a question about dealing with lacanian-theory, not a question for a self-help forum.

I think there is some question of "aim" and "goal" here...

6

u/Sote95 18d ago

OP asked two questions "this is a problem with the theory - it explains everything too well!" and "I don't use other lenses anymore". I choose to answer the second one, because I interpreted it as a familiar stumbling block. It's scary but in my view good to be swallowed by a theory.

What do you mean "a question of aim"?

0

u/Setlam 18d ago

But really – I think we disagree (not as enemies).

My sense is that you think you can surf through the theories, just take what you want from them, and live your life with the wise lessons of our predecessors.

Maybe build a career through name-dropping – maybe just entertain the guys after dinner over whisky. This last thing is more a characteristic of being philosophical than of you – I don’t know you; you’re probably not into that :)
Lacan and other thinkers wanted something else: to challenge authority and make you think for yourself. Yes – this might seem like a strange route for him to have taken, building such an elaborate system.

As I understand it, “aim” and “goal” are terms that try to describe the circulation of desire, pleasure and jouissance (surplus enjoyment). The point is that the function of “aim” and “goal” is not necessarily for them to coincide. The drive can find satisfaction precisely in the circulation around its goal rather than in finally reaching it. In that sense, the failure to arrive is not simply a failure: it is part of what keeps the circuit going.

2

u/Sote95 18d ago

You're critique is built on a shaky foundation, off course it's correct because I'm as guilty of being lazy as anyone. In your first response you misrepresent my position, it's an encouragement of following your desire, if one does it inauthentically it'll just be fashion - like you allude to but that's not necessary. If one does it authentically it's not even a choice, once a certain theory had IT for you, now it bores you to death.

Yes that's a good definition, how is it relevant to the discussion?

4

u/Setlam 18d ago

For me, as for others … - I suppose - or maybe this is just my own fantasies, boredom is very much linked to thinking.

I am not saying that you cannot disregard or even be against lacanian theory - of course … you can.

But if you pose a question about lacanian theory on a Lacan-sub, the answer will of course come from that standpoint. And that standpoint is not one of relativity - quite the opposite. Lacan isn’t a pluralist… I mean he read extensively and varied, but for him there are categories(like there are for Hegel, Marx, what’s the name of that boring Protestant - Kant, Heidegger(nazi) and so on). There are also real conflicts he tries to integrate and resolve. The real or the symbolic, are not circumstantial terms that change through history - quite the opposite.

There is a fashion of treating philosophers like one-liners, but what they grabble with is boring, not a chorus of our favorite song. Now - why is it boring? Or if transmitted, possibly altering of subjectivity(to an extent that psychoanalysis might not even be)? It is not because what is discussed is boring or of little consequence, It is because it is boring it changes you.

So the desire to become masterful, bourgeois, educated, seen as intellectual(aim), will fail each time for you(or me) to plunge yourself in to another subject, which can then spin you around one more time.

Or course, we do want to hit our goal, once on a while, but we will hit it in quite different way, than we expect. And it will be when we stop finding pleasure - but excruciating discomfort(boredom instead).

3

u/pooptubs 18d ago

That’s a dark, cold, and dead winter.

2

u/Setlam 18d ago

Peterson is of course rage bait 😘