There is an accelerated mutation of civilization, the effect of the interference of science in the world, which means that “we have left behind the epoch of malaise to enter decisively into that of impasse”[1]. “Here as there, one paves the way for science by rectifying one’s ethical position.”[2]
A new code[3] is expanding, it has penetrated the depths of the taste of the time. It is shared and resonates in diverse fields. As an example, the signifiers used by climate emergency activists denounce a “civilization that has conceived its relationship with nature in terms of domination and depredation, instead of preservation, care and independence”[4]. Domination and depredation are signifiers shared with gender theory and racial theory, as opposed to ideals such as care and independence, which are part of what is to be achieved.
A significant example, which involves segregative barriers and is common in U.S. universities, is safe spaces, where students can take refuge from perspectives or expressions that clash with their own. This “movement is primarily about emotional well-being […] emphasizes the goal of protecting students from psychological damage”[5].While the right not to be offended exists in every tradition, the discursive dimension has changed, extending as evidence of an offense any verbal conduct considered “inconvenient” related to sex, race, religion, nation or disability. This evidence of subjective character creates a zone of indefinition between law and morality, which produces an extensive debate on censorship and freedom of speech[6]. The subjective thus becomes political, which is at the basis of the woke movements.
To this segregating effect caused by the the father’s disappearance[7], Miller adds: “there is not only a segregating side; I will add that there is also an aspiration to the universal good, that we all speak well to each other, making the bad speech flee from our speech”[8].
This aspiration is nothing but a new myth of benevolence[9], based on the consideration of distributive injustice that would be at stake in any difference, especially in the male-female binarism[10]. This leads to a push for justice and takes the form of a new imperative that presents itself as categorical, in spite of any object, which Miller has described as listening without interpretation[11], which produces effects of anguish and self-censorship at the moment of questioning it in the public sphere.
What one finds in an analysis is that the impossible to bear, which animates the rebellion, is in oneself and can coincide with the intimate theater of the fantasy[12]. There a jouissance is found, an envy of jouissance, jealouissance[13], of which we must be aware, if we want to rebel in the right way.
[1] Miller J.-A., El Otro que no existe y sus comités de ética (The Other That Doesn’t Exist
and Its Ethicical Committees), Buenos Aires, Paidós, 2013, p. 15.
[2] Lacan J., « Kant with Sade », Écrits, New York – London, W. W. Norton Company, 2006, p. 645.
[3] Cf. « Translations from the Wokish », New discourses Pursuing the light of objective truth in subjective darkness, available on: https://newdiscourses.com/translations-from-the-wokish/.
[4] Olabe A., Necesidad de una política para la tierra Emergencia climática en tiempos de confrontación (Need for a land policy Climate emergency in times of confrontation), Barcelona, Galaxia Gutenberg, 2022, p. 238.
[5] Lukianoff G. y Haidt J., « The coddling of the american mind », Atlantic, September 2015, available on: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/.
[6] Canto-Sperber M., Sauver la liberté d’expression (Saving freedom of Speech), Albin Michel, 2021.
[7] Lacan J., « Note on the Father and Universalism », The Lacanian Review 3, trans. Russell Grigg, p. 11.
[8] Miller J-A., « Conversaciones con analistas españoles y rusos » (Conversations with Spanish and Russian analysts), La Colección de la ELP, n°16, p. 17. Also in Miller J.-A., « La escucha con y sin interpretación » (Listening with and without interpretation), Lacan Web TV, May 15th 2021, available in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F56PprU6Jmk.
[9] Lacan J., « Kant with Sade », op. cit., p. 645.
[10] Miller J-A., « Docile to the trans », NLS Messager, https://www.amp-nls.org/nls-messager/docile-to-trans-by-jacques-alain-miller-in-english/.
[11] Miller J-A., op. cit.
[12] Miller J.-A., « ¿Cómo rebelarse? » (How to rebel?), Carretel, n 15, Bilbao, Grama, 2020, p. 93.
[13] Lacan J., The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, book XX, Encore, New York – London, W. W. Norton Company, 1999, p. 100.
Translation: Ana Inés Bertón
Proofreading: Linda Clarke
Picture : © Geoffroy Mottart
