As I was reviewing the neighbor-love theory, a couple connections occurred to me, and I would like to submit them to the blog for comment and criticism.
First of all, could one say that mystics are able to obtain greater access to the prohibited jouissance by converting God the Father into the figure of a lover? I am thinking of Reinhard’s retelling of the brothers murdering their father, and yet afterwards renouncing the woman (44). In the mystical literature it seems that the father is not murdered but sublimated into the beloved, and that this act removes the guilt and prohibition of the symbolic order that otherwise blocks jouissance. I am not an expert in psychoanalytic theory, though, so please comment.
Also, as I read Reinhard and Zizek together, I wonder if the unlabeled center of Reinhard’s circle diagram (74) could be the ethical obligation to the third that Zizek describes. Here, where love of neighbor, self and God (also labeled as the real, imaginary, and symbolic orders) intersect, a traditional interpretation could say that the face of the neighbor reminds one of one’s ethical obligation as governed by the law.
Zizek writes, “The symbolic order qua Third, the pacifying mediator, has to intervene: the ‘gentrification’ of the Other –Thing into a ‘normal human fellow’… presupposes the third agency to which we both submit ourselves” (143-4). The intersection between only self (imaginary) and neighbor (real) is the unobtainable “petit a,” so my understanding is that without the understanding or guidelines of the symbolic, the Other would remain inaccessible. (To avoid confusion, I want to note that it seems the Third (symbolic) mentioned here is different from the “‘third party,’ the multitude of empirical others” (145) on whose behalf Zizek argues at the end of his chapter.)
Yet, I think this central area can represent an ethics without understanding, and thus the mystical experience, in which neither the law, self or other are clearly defined, allows one to enter.
Zizek questions, “What if only a God who is ready to subordinate his own Law to love can in practice push us to realize blind justice in all its harshness?” (185) This God, no longer author of the Decalogue but rather acting out of love, seems like a greater approximation to the mystics’ god.
Perhaps here, in the center, the strangeness of oneself, of a lover-God, and of an unknowable neighbor would intersect and overlap. (Das Ding of overall existence?) Could becoming God’s “lover” be one way of accessing the feminine “not-all” and extending it to the center of the Borromean knot? This could create a new “imaginary” relationship between the self and a new symbolic order, no longer fixed because it is also infused with the Real. I’m sorry if that doesn’t make any sense—it’s difficult to articulate what the intersection of all three orders would look like. The self would relate to the others, but not in a stable way. The neighbor, not gentrified, would at the same time no longer be absolutely terrifying because of the presence of God. God would no longer be a knowable symbolic that explains or proscribes, but rather would provide a site for shared strangeness in which true ethics, Justice “prime,” could occur.
Jouissance, mystics, and ethics....
ReplyDeleteAs I was reviewing the neighbor-love theory, a couple connections occurred to me, and I would like to submit them to the blog for comment and criticism.
First of all, could one say that mystics are able to obtain greater access to the prohibited jouissance by converting God the Father into the figure of a lover? I am thinking of Reinhard’s retelling of the brothers murdering their father, and yet afterwards renouncing the woman (44). In the mystical literature it seems that the father is not murdered but sublimated into the beloved, and that this act removes the guilt and prohibition of the symbolic order that otherwise blocks jouissance. I am not an expert in psychoanalytic theory, though, so please comment.
Also, as I read Reinhard and Zizek together, I wonder if the unlabeled center of Reinhard’s circle diagram (74) could be the ethical obligation to the third that Zizek describes. Here, where love of neighbor, self and God (also labeled as the real, imaginary, and symbolic orders) intersect, a traditional interpretation could say that the face of the neighbor reminds one of one’s ethical obligation as governed by the law.
Zizek writes, “The symbolic order qua Third, the pacifying mediator, has to intervene: the ‘gentrification’ of the Other –Thing into a ‘normal human fellow’… presupposes the third agency to which we both submit ourselves” (143-4). The intersection between only self (imaginary) and neighbor (real) is the unobtainable “petit a,” so my understanding is that without the understanding or guidelines of the symbolic, the Other would remain inaccessible. (To avoid confusion, I want to note that it seems the Third (symbolic) mentioned here is different from the “‘third party,’ the multitude of empirical others” (145) on whose behalf Zizek argues at the end of his chapter.)
Yet, I think this central area can represent an ethics without understanding, and thus the mystical experience, in which neither the law, self or other are clearly defined, allows one to enter.
Zizek questions, “What if only a God who is ready to subordinate his own Law to love can in practice push us to realize blind justice in all its harshness?” (185) This God, no longer author of the Decalogue but rather acting out of love, seems like a greater approximation to the mystics’ god.
Perhaps here, in the center, the strangeness of oneself, of a lover-God, and of an unknowable neighbor would intersect and overlap. (Das Ding of overall existence?) Could becoming God’s “lover” be one way of accessing the feminine “not-all” and extending it to the center of the Borromean knot? This could create a new “imaginary” relationship between the self and a new symbolic order, no longer fixed because it is also infused with the Real. I’m sorry if that doesn’t make any sense—it’s difficult to articulate what the intersection of all three orders would look like. The self would relate to the others, but not in a stable way. The neighbor, not gentrified, would at the same time no longer be absolutely terrifying because of the presence of God. God would no longer be a knowable symbolic that explains or proscribes, but rather would provide a site for shared strangeness in which true ethics, Justice “prime,” could occur.
Thoughts? Thanks!