Universal Truth I

Is philosophy a valid theoretical framework for the access to Universal truth?

Psychoanalysis is not the philosophy of human psyche for it tells us nothing about the truth that a philosopher would be interested in. Upon the couch, Freud has opened up the space for imagination, fantasy, lie and joke, but he has never required his patient to tell the truth.  Truth is not the imperative, for what psychoanalyst interests is the unconscious truth which may always be beyond the daily articulation.

But what could be the truth in psychoanalysis if it could not within the discourse of the patient. Lacan says the truth in psychoanalysis can only be found in jouissance, in lack, in the place where we are not present.  This truth is possible only within the larger framework of the Universal truth as lack.

Living in the world (in Heidegger’s sense) that we are trained to play the role as a subject or an object (master or slave) and we have no idea this only reflects what would be our misconception of the inwardly circumcised mediation (logics) of our status as an unified order. If the master/slave dialectics is put onto the larger background of a Universal truth, (i.e. the order of physical existence puts into interaction with the order of human existence, either in the form psycho-theological way or as a Kantian transcendental) the interface can only be the field of the freudian. The Freudian field opens up the internal world that enables the human psychoanalytic field interact, reflect, change, engage or restructure the substantiality of the Real.

Even when it is not only a matter of ontic experience, but of ontological understanding, the interpretation of being initially orients itself toward the being of innerworldly beings. Here the being of things initially at hand is passed over and beings are first conceived as a context of things (res) objectively present. Being acquires the meaning of reality. Substantiality becomes the basic of characteristic of being…. like other beings, Da-sein is also objectively present as real. (Heidegger, Being and Time I.vi 43)

This is what Heidegger taught us about the real and how it validates Da-sein as “objectively present”, as the basic of being.  And it also show us the importance of being “seen” or “discovered” as the basic of being/truth. Being as truth while it validates the connection between subject and object in discoveredness.

To say that a statement is true means that it discovers the beings in themselves. It asserts, it shows, it lets beings “be seen”in their discoveredness. The being true (truth) of the statement must be understood as discovering. Thus, truth by no means has the structure of an agreement between knowing and the object in the sense of a correspondence of one being (subject) to another (object). (Heidegger, Being and Time I vi 44)

Filed under: Derrida, Heidegger, Lacan, psychoanalysis, symbolic order, the Real , Being as being, Derrida, environmental issue, Heidegger, Lacan

Zizekian Twist

It is by the famous intellectual star Slavoj Zizek that parallax is the observed difference, displacement of object. The parallax [Greek: parallassein = shift] is the minimal shift in object in contrary to nano-difference in space and time of the gazing subjects. It connotes the partial blindness, the intentional and deviant swap of gaze with or without the affirmative of a unique subjectivity.

The philosophical twist ….. is not simply “subjective” due to the fact that the same object which exist “out there” is seen from two different stances or point of view. (Parallax View 17)

It seems that the Lacanian gaze is radically twisted like a mobius stripe and there is no longer a verification of the very subjectivity of the Subject, or what exist is simply but the pluralistic twist of subjectivity. If there is more than a subject or the subject itself presupposes a close approximation that could be an apparent resemblance, a friend of politics, a dialectics of twins, the nano-difference between the twos could be the impossible of distance which can only be understood as a dialectics in topological twist.

Lacanian subject presupposes a subjectivity within the clinical field of psychoanalysis which Zizek may not agree with. The intrasubjectivity within our clinical experience is unlikely a reference for us to understand Zizek: it may connote that social reflectivity within the clinical session may become equivocal as it comes to contextual and worldly environs. The pluralist twist from a clinical subject to consolidated subjects radicalizes and opens up what could be the impossible volition, violation toward a dialectical revision of Lacan’s prima. The parallax view assumes the view from partial blindness, intentional acceptance of the partial truth. It is not unusual among the Chinese, especially from those with authority or extreme authority, making approval, justification, testimonial, licensing, validation with one eye opens and one eye closes. There is parallax shift only when we act with one eye opens and one eye closes. The shift itself is preoccupied with ideological blindness that is known and accepted among the members of the environs. The Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) has a famous scene of spying over a tiny holes. It is not usual among man who enjoys the jouissance of spying over woman that one see with same eye all the time. The parallax view will never be an access to jouissance as jouissance itself comes mainly from a unique pleasure of an imaginary unique of one’s desire. The gaze itself may never be a parallax gaze.

The gaze can also be prohibited, not to go into parallax stance, if one has search “Analia Hounie” in google picture, one will find it really difficult for one to have a gaze of our Zizekian Idol.

Filed under: Gaze, Lacan, Zizek, symbolic order , Analia Hounie, Gaze, Lacan, Parallax View, Renata Salecl, Zizek

Lust, Caution

Sorry to say it is not easy to view the award winning film from Ang Lee “Lust, Caution” as a romantic story as it is supposed to be (although someone may not agree). For us, lust is the language of Lacan – the jouissance of the impossible, the pleasure out of extreme painful experience. Sexual excitement may not be the only possibility of desire – as desire is someone one can not have or afraid of getting hold.

Desire is the alibi of the Other, the impulsive seeking of fulfillment which is impossible except with Death.  I do not see any lust in the movie although it is the dilemma of lust and caution putting into question.  Who’s lust? The Man’s or the Woman’s or no one at all.  I think this is basically a love story about scarification, socially unacceptable (barred) love and the secrecy of romance that both the Man and Woman do not aware.

What the girl seeking for in the plot against the enemy she sleeps with is nothing but negation -  against the father in absence, the coward schoolboy and at the end the miserable of life. Neither does she identify with the non professional spy group formed by her old schoolboys, nor does she need to be a patriot in whatever sense. She is indifferent, subtle and knows exactly her own demand, but she never shares the vision of being  an assassin. She may need the extreme kind of revenge against her schoolboy’s cowardice, against her father’s insufficiency, against the nation. Revenge at the end of existence is a kind of jouissance through which she identifies with the Thing that she may not have for life. The Thing could be, in face value, the marvelous diamond ring in question – the extravagance of existence, love or peacefulness.

But at the end, who cares where does the Thing drift. It ends up in void – the signification of the Thing dissolved as the substance of the Thing archived.

Filed under: Lacan, object a, psychoanalysis, symbolic order, the Real , , Ang Lee, Caution, Chinese Film, Lust, The Thing

Object of Psychoanalysis

The object of psychoanalysis is no other than what I have already proposed about the function played in analysis by object a. Is knowledge of object a thus the science of psychoanalysis?This is precisely the equation that must be avoided, since object a must be inserted, as we already know, into the division of the subject by which the psychoanalytic field is quite specifically structured — this is the point with which I resumed my seminar today. This is why it is was important to promote firstly, and as a fact to be distinguished from the question of knowing whether psychoanalysis is a science (that is, whether its field is scientific), the fact that its praxis implies no other subject than that of science. (“Science & Truth” in Ecrits)

Object a denotes the residual of symbolization through which the object a, as the reflective externality of inner most psychic reality splitting up into fragmentation, achieves its undeniable status in the psychoanalysis. It is the only that is created out of the symbolic order but exists in the realm of the Real. The real is the unspeakable, the realm that language can not pass through. It is also the case with the object a which is not a signifier or no longer at all. It is the only possible substance that is created out of symbolization. Similar to what cosmological black hole it can be, the internal tension of the object a is created out of the extensive reaction of symbolization. It is the residual of the signification, but in the meantime it is no longer within the realm of symbolic. As in the black hole, one says there is distortion of substance, speed or even time. The internal power to absorbing substance makes existence beyond it impossible. Object a is an agent already beyond the usual practice of understanding. It may have no meaning (as it is the residual) but it also in the same time the only substantial agent that have retained the trace of symbolization. The archic trace of sign that is exactly what Derrida mentioned in the scenario of the “Mythic Writing Pad.”
Object a is the only possible evidence of psychoanalysis as science. It is the Virgin Mary of existence that the holiness of the highest existence (i.e. language as God is existed) has passed through her body and makes her the only possible existence that evidence the very action of holy experience. The language operation again the object a is similar to the said holy action. It offers the prestigious status to the object a and makes it the key for understanding of psychoanalysis as science. That is the experience that even the son of man does not have, even though he is always regarded as immortal.

Filed under: object a, symbolic order, the Real , christian, Derrida, imaginary order, mythic writing pad, object a, symbolic order, the Real, virgin mary

Jouissance in subversion

The intrusion into politics can only be made by recognising that there is discourse, and not just the analytic discourse, only of jouissance, at least when one hopes for the work of truth from it. The characterisation of the discourse of the master as comprising a hidden truth does not mean that this discourse is hidden…..this mean that there is something that is compressed, that is like a superimposition, something that needs to be unfolded in order to legible. It is clean that its truth is hidden from it, and a certain Hegel articulated that it is delivered to him through the work of the slave. Only there you have it, it is a discourse of the master…..which rests on the substitution of the State for the master through the long pathway of culture, in order to end up at absolute knowledge. (Lacan, Seminar XVII Chapter 5)

In the field of politics, there is no such a thing as absolute knowledge while the only possible position is the position of the master. It is the discourse of the master which bridges the inconsistent, incoherent flow  from imaginary (libido force to dominate) to the Real. The master signifier demands, regulates and tries every possible rhetorical mechanism to defend its own validity. But it is clear, as Lacan points out, paradoxically that the validity of the master is unfold only through the work of the slave. The suppression of the slave will call out the truth of the master and let him out of his own compressed self knowledge. The position of the master is void itself; its emptiness is realized by his very impossibility to access to absolute knowledge which the acting out the the slave does help to revitalize its very existence. It is through the discontent of the slave and only through which that the discourse of master is delivered and made relevant. The pain of the slave illustrates the master’s jouissance registered in the Real. It is by the pathway of the master’s discourse that the imaginary of the master can access to the Real (painful existence of the slave) in a controllable manner.

In the election that activates the participation of the ex-chief secretary Anson Chan joining the run in Hong Kong. The master’s discourse of universal suffrage makes it possible for her imaginary (libido for power) access the Real (control and monitoring within the system). Of course, every participants enjoy the same logic of jouissance; although it is the subversion of jouissance that arouses the interest of Anson Chan’s counterpart, Regina Ip, even though she also claimed to support universal suffrage as well.

Even though the master has tried to arouse the popular attention, but without the acting out of a slave, the hidden and compressed truth of the master will never be uncovered. This is unaware even in the level of the master herself.

Filed under: symbolic order, the Real , Anson Chan, election, Hong Kong, imaginary order, jouissance, Master's discourse, psychoanalysis, Regina Ip