Being as jouissance ?
May 1968. The Name-of-the-Father, already well undermined, is defeated. This is the intoxication of the revolution ! Other than the « conservatives », no one dares to refer to the patriarchy. Jacques Lacan, an « anti-progressive »[1], responded not without malice : « What you aspire to as revolutionaries is a master. You will get one. »[2]
It’s done ; we have him ! Not in the form of a new « father » figure but in the form of collectives of modes of jouissance that demand to be in the place of the agent in the discourses and the social bond. Being and jouissance : this is already a first antinomy since these signifiers relate to heterogeneous fields.
Woke : A march-order that holds on to an « a » !
In the argument of Pipol 11, Guy Poblome speaks about the strong return of the patriarchy : « Considered as a social, cultural and economic system built for the domination and exploitation of women by men, of racial, class or gender minorities by the white, colonialist, bourgeois and heteronormative majority ; patriarchy brings together feminist struggles, so-called woke ideologies and the activism of the LGBTQIA+ community against it »[3].
« Woke » culture means being « awake » or « aware » in the face of all forms of social intolerances. Wokism demands freedom of expression for all, even if it means no longer hearing each other speak. These militant movements infiltrate social networks but remain very complicated to define. An all-inclusive signifier, wokism can take on the exact opposite meaning depending on whether one is situated on the right or left side of politics. Also, « [w]hat solution could seriously be expected from the word “collective” in this instance when the collective and the individual are strictly the same thing »[4] ?
Is it a strong return of the patriarchy or a march-order to the return of the foreclosed tyrannical jouissance that the myth contains ? In any case, what an irony, because dictatorship, the authoritarianism of the modes of jouissance and its « lathouses »[5] are clearly delusions that aim to foreclose speech and the unconscious[6], hallucinating a non-differential, symmetrical world.
On December 1st, 1954, J. Lacan supported : « It is man who introduces the notion of asymmetry. Asymmetry in nature is neither symmetrical, nor asymmetrical – it is what it is. »[7] This means that the concepts of asymmetry and differential required for the field of language and speech are not « natural ». They require a living speaking body. Thus, wokism would not be linked to patriarchal authoritarianism but to the tyranny of jouissance that presents itself in the guise of group ideals from which no clan nor school can escape.
Logics that object to the tyranny of the jouissance of the Ideal
To object to this tyranny, I will mention, in a non-exhaustive manner, the femininity that always defies the semblant and causes writing[8], of that which in the parent impresses without crushing[9], or that which supports the abutment of the impossible[10] in the aggressive tendency of each one.
And, finally, Jacques-Alain Miller’s recommendation against the Ideal, the imaginary root of every group/individual : « To interpret the group is to dissociate it and to send each one of the members of the community to his loneliness, to the loneliness of his relation to the Ideal »[11].
[1]Lacan J., The Seminar, Book XVII, The Other Side of Psychoanalysis, text established by J.-A. Miller, translated by R. Grigg, W.W. Norton, NY and London, 2007, p. 208.
[2] Ibid., p. 207.
[3]Poblome G., Clinic and Critique of Patriarchy, argument of the Congress Pipol 11, online publication : https://www.europsychoanalysis.eu/pipol/?lang=en.
[4]Lacan J., The Seminar, Book II, The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, text established by J.-A. Miller, translated by S. Tomaselli NY and London, 1991, p. 30.
[5] Lacan J., The Seminar, Book XVII, op. cit., p. 162.
[6] Cf. Brousse M.-H., Abitbol S., Crozali C., Landriscini N., « En direct d’Identity Politics, avec Marie-Hélène Brousse », L’Hebdo-Blog, n°100, 26 mars 2017, publication en ligne : https://www.hebdo-blog.fr/en-direct-du-seminaire-de-marie-helene-brousse-identity-politics/
[7] Lacan J., The Seminar, Book II, op. cit., p. 38.
[8] Cf. Laurent É., « Lacan, l’amour de la Féminité », La Cause du désir, n°112, November 2022, p. 75.
[9] Cf. Laurent É., « Parentalités après le patriarcat », Zappeur JIE7, publication en ligne : https://institut-enfant.fr/zappeur-jie7/parentalites-apres-le-patriarcat/.
[10] Cf. Ansermet F., « Les sources subjectives de la violence », Médecine & Hygiène, n°2457, novembre 2003, p. 2118-2122.
[11] Miller J.-A., « The Turin Theory of the subject of the School », translated by H. Menzies & V. Dachy, published online: https://www.iclo-nls.org/_files/ugd/add8ea_0b943911857a47ee971889dc7acd2740.pdf, p. 3.
Translation : Dana Tor
Proofreading : Manuela Rabesahala
Picture : © Elena Madera
