“In the era of the Other that doesn’t exist, modes of enjoyment [jouissances], are not ordered in the same way. In the absence of locating oneself in an Other, a bonding with communities of jouissance is observed, each based on a particular mode of enjoyment [jouir]. The isolated, even disoriented, subject occasionally finds an identity there”[1]. These “communities of loners [solitaires]”[2] no longer tolerate any prohibition conceived as a demonstration of authority. All forms of authority are associated with a power of virile domination exercised by a father who is always suspected of abuse[3]. However, wanting to make the father “the sole target of a criticism against the authoritarianism of power” is “to blame the master on duty just to establish, unknowingly, a new master in power perhaps worse than the first”[4]. Thus, in the age of gender studies and the post #MeToo era, a slogan is once again being heard – “Down with the patriarchy!” – a cry without appeal. Behind this cry of refutation is the extension of the domain of jouissances that can no longer be repressed and which, in the end, reign supreme. If the contemporary era is fed up with the father in terms of the multiple forms of domination and abuse it is to forget that “the mode of existence of the father stems from this real [tient au réel]”[5] – paternal perversion [père-version] – opening to limitation and possible symptomatisation, one by one.
Behind the recusal of an imperative figure, it is “the demands of a supposedly legitimate jouissance that draws the subject in”[6]. If Lacan was able to make the Name-of-the-Father the operator of regulation of jouissance, today, at the time of the “disappearance of the father”, the demands of the drive are knotted otherwise with the body of the Other. “Dans l’égarement de notre jouissance, il n’y a [pourtant] que l’Autre qui la situe, mais c’est en tant que nous en sommes séparés”[7]. Today, there is malaise in separation, an operation which allows, on the one hand, the production of the subject of the unconscious and, on the other, the articulation of the subject and the object. Denying or even rejecting separation produces a quest for the most illusory satisfaction and a rise in segregation. “The ideal always appears to be present in its demand but no longer [treats] jouissance”[8]. It leaves the subject to grapple with the jouissance of the “Ones all Alone”. In his offer and his act the analyst participates in civilising jouissance and producing the subject[9]. This civilising operation aims to rehabilitate a dialectic, to support an alterity and to reinscribe each one in a social link that no longer exists, provided that it is based on that which makes the difference, elevating to greater dignity: the work of rearranging “the separation of the One of the body that enjoys alone and that of the Other that speaks”[10].
[1] Girard H., « L’égarement de notre jouissance », Hebdo Blog, n°236, 2 mai 2021, disponible sur internet.
[2] Quignard P., Sur l’idée d’une communauté de solitaires, Paris, Arléa, 2015.
[3] Cf. Leguil C., « Actualité de la psychanalyse. Critique du monopole de la jouissance légitime », Studio Lacan, n°42, 28 janvier 2023, disponible sur internet : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD-iwMv7z3A.
[4] Cosenza D., « Autoritarismes », Blog Nobodaddy de Pipol 11, texte d’orientation posté le 2 février 2023. In English: https://www.pipol11.eu/en/2023/01/26/authoritarism-domenico-cosenza/.
[5] Cf. Fajnwaks F., « La voie du plus-de-jouir », Blog Nobodaddy de Pipol 11, texte d’orientation posté le 10 février 2023. In English: https://www.pipol11.eu/en/2023/02/09/the-way-of-surplus-jouissance-fabian-fajnwaks/.
[6] Cf. Leguil C., op.cit.
[7] Lacan J., « Télévision », Autres écrits, Paris, Seuil, 1973, p. 534.
[8] Laurent É., Miller J.-A, « L’orientation lacanienne. L’Autre qui n’existe pas et ses comités d’éthique », enseignement prononcé dans le cadre du département de psychanalyse de l’université Paris 8, cours du 4 décembre 1996, p. 40, inédit.
[9] Cf. Miller J.-A., « Produire le sujet ? », Actes de l’École de la Cause freudienne, n°4, mai 1983.
[10] Cf. Sidon P., « Les substances de la jouissance : lectures du symptôme contemporain », Enseignement de l’École de la Cause freudienne 2022-2023, séance du 4 octobre 2022, inédit.
