GETTING AT THE BIG OTHER: THAT ELUSIVE, INDESCRIBABLE... THING, S.#1

The first of eight posts committed to a not-so-brief outline of the first chapter of How to Read Lacan, by Slavoj Zizek. This first post will highlight a few key points and phrases in re: Lacan's concern for language (the self-reflexivity, for instance, of an act of communication) and the role of the big Other in our lives (of what impels or dissuades one to do something). Now, I don't claim to to fully understand half of this complicated nonsense, but, nonetheless, here's a little taste of what's to come.

KEY POINTS

• In spite of all its grounding power, the big Other is fragile, insubstantial, practically virtual, in the sense that its status is that of a subjective presupposition.

• The big Other exists insofar as subjects act as if it exits.

• It is the substance of the individuals who recognize themselves in it, the ground of their whole existence, the point of reference that provides the ultimate horizon of meaning, something for which these individuals are ready to give their lives, yet the only thing that really exists are these individuals and their activity, so this substance is actual only insofar as individuals believe in it and act accordingly.

• This virtual character of the big Other means that the symbolic order is not a kind of spiritual substance existing independently of individuals, but something that is sustained through their continuous activity.

• Human communication is characterized by an irreducible reflexivity: every act of communication simultaneously symbolizes the fact of communication.

• Consciousness is opposed to mere knowledge of an object: Knowledge is external to the known object, while consciousness is in itself “practical,” an act that changes its very object.

• Once a worker “considers himself to belong to the ranks of the proletariat,” this changes his very reality: he acts differently.

• When one does something, one counts oneself as (declares oneself) the one who did it, and, on the base of this declaration, one does something new – the proper moment of subjective transformation occurs at the moment of declaration, not at the moment of the act.

• This reflexive moment of declaration means that every utterance not only transmits some content, but, simultaneously, conveys the way the subject relates to this content.

• The question to be raised is: What more doe this statement contain, that has caused you to make it?

• The act of not mentioning or concealing something can create additional meaning.

• One should not forget to include in the content of an act of communication the act itself, since the meaning of each act of communication is also to reflexively assert that it is an act of communication.