AND FINALLY, THE WHEELBARROW, S.#8

Recall the old story about a worker suspected of stealing: every evening, when he was leaving the factory, the wheel-barrow he was rolling in front of him was carefully inspected, but the guards could not find anything, it was always empty – till, finally, they got the point: what the worker was stealing were the wheel-barrows themselves. This reflexive twist pertains to communication as such: one should not forget to include into the content of an act of communication this act itself, since the meaning of each act of communication is also to reflexively assert that it is an act of communication. This is the first thing to bear in mind about the way the unconscious operates: it is not hidden in the wheel-barrow, it is the wheel-barrow itself.

WESTERN TOILETS, SHIT, AND THE 3RD REICH, S.#7

The unsurpassed master of such analysis [utility functioning as a reflective notion, in that it always involves the assertion of utility as meaning; an example: to wear stone-washed jeans is to signal a certain attitude to life] was Claude Levi-Strauss, for whom food also serves as “food for thought”. The three main modes of food preparation (raw, baked, boiled) function as a semiotic triangle: we use them to symbolize the basic opposition of (“raw”) nature and (“baked”) culture, as well as the mediation between the two opposites (in the procedure of boiling). There is a memorable scene in Louis Bunuel’s Fantom of Freedom in which relations between eating and excreting are inverted: people sit at their toilets around the table, pleasantly talking, and when they want to eat, they silently ask the housekeeper “Where is that place, you know?” and sneak away to a small room in the back. As a supplement to Lévi-Strauss, one is tempted to propose that shit can also serve as a “stuff for thought”: the three basic types of toilet-design in the West form a kind of excremental counterpoint to the Lévi-Straussian triangle of cooking. In a traditional German toilet, the hole in which shit disappears after we flush water, is way in front, so that shit is first laid out for us to sniff at and inspect for traces of some illness; in the typical French toilet the hole is far to the back, so that shit is supposed to disappear as soon as possible; finally, the American toilet presents a kind of synthesis, a mediation between these two opposed poles – the toilet basin is full of water, so that the shit floats in it, visible, but not to be inspected. No wonder that, in the famous discussion of different European toilets at the beginning of her half-forgotten Fear of Flying, Erica Jong mockingly claims that “German toilets are really the key to the horrors of the Third Reich. People who can build toilets like this are capable of anything.” It is clear that none of these versions can be accounted for in purely utilitarian terms: a certain ideological perception of how the subject should relate to the unpleasant excrement which comes from within our body, is clearly discernible in it.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TACITLY AGREED UPON LOVE AFFAIRS ARE VOCALIZED, S.#6

This declarative dimension of symbolic interaction can be exemplified by means of a delicate situation in human relationships. Imagine a couple with a tacit agreement that they can lead discreet extra-marital affairs. If, all of a sudden, the husband openly tells his wife about an ongoing affair, she will have good reasons to be in panic: “If it is just an affair, why are you telling me this? It must be something more!” The act of publicly reporting on something is never neutral, it affects the reported content itself and although the partners learn nothing knew by means of it, it changes everything. There is also a big difference between the partner simply not talking about the secret adventures and explicitly stating that s/he will not talk about them (”You know, I think I have the right not to tell you about all my contacts, there is a part of my life which is of no concern to you!”). In the second case, when the silent pact is rendered explicit, this statement itself cannot but deliver an additional aggressive message.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE SOCIOPATH, S.#5

The notion of the social link established through empty gestures enables us to define in a precise way the figure of sociopath: what is beyond the sociopath’s grasp is the fact that “many human acts are performed … for the sake of the interaction itself.” In other words, the sociopath’s use of language paradoxically fits perfectly the standard commonsense notion of language as purely instrumental means of communication, as signs that transmit meanings. He uses language, he is not caught into it, and he is insensitive to the performative dimension. This determines a sociopath’s attitude towards morality: while he is able to discern moral rules that regulate social interaction, and even to act morally insofar as he establishes that it fits his interests, he lacks the “gut feeling” of right and wrong, the notion that one just cannot do some things, independently of the external social rules. In short, a sociopath truly practices the notion of morality developed by utilitarianism, according to which, morality designates a behavior we adopt by way of intelligently calculating our interests (in the long run, it profits us all if we try to contribute to the pleasure of the greatest possible number of people): for him, morality is a theory one learns and follows, not something one substantially identifies with. Doing evil is a mistake in calculation, not guilt.

EMPTY GESTURES AND PERFORMATIVES, S.#4

Zizek explains that the big Other operates on a symbolic level. He expounds on what this symbolic order is composed of: we when speak or listen (communicate) we don't think about the rules of grammar or syntax. If I were to bear these rules in mind at all times my speech would essentially break down. So, we never merely interact with others. Our speech activity is grounded on our accepting and relying on a complex network of rules and other kinds presuppositions. In the background of an act of communication is the active participation in the same so-called “life-world” that enables me and my partner in conversation to understand each other. Now Zizek is ready call this symbolic level on which the big Other operates “symbolic space,” and this symbolic space acts like a yardstick against which I can measure myself. This is why the big Other can be personified or “reified” in a single agent, e.g. God, or, a Cause. The following is an excerpt:

THE PROMOTION AND THE NOTION OF A FREE CHOICE

The most elementary level of symbolic exchange is a so-called “empty gesture,” an offer made or meant to be rejected. Brecht gave a poignant expression to this feature in his play Jasager. in which the young boy is asked to accord freely with what will in any case be his fate (to be thrown into the valley); as his teacher explains it to him, it is customary to ask the victim if he agrees with his fate, but it is also customary for the victim to say yes. Belonging to a society involves a paradoxical point at which each of us is ordered to embrace freely, as the result of our choice, what is anyway imposed on us (we all must love our country or our parents). This paradox of willing (choosing freely) what is in any case necessary, of pretending (maintaining the appearance) that there is a free choice although effectively there isn’t one, is strictly codependent with the notion of an empty symbolic gesture, a gesture – an offer – which is meant to be rejected.

Something similar is part of our everyday mores. When, after being engaged in a fierce competition for a job promotion with my closest friend, I win, the proper thing to do is to offer to retract, so that he will get the promotion, and the proper thing for him to do is to reject my offer – this way, perhaps, our friendship can be saved. What we have here is symbolic exchange at its purest: a gesture made to be rejected. The magic of symbolic exchange is that, although at the end we are where we were at the beginning, there is a distinct gain for both parties in their pact of solidarity. Of course, the problem is: what if the person to whom the offer to be rejected is made actually accepts it? What if, upon being beaten in the competition, I accept my friend’s offer to get the promotion instead of him? A situation like this is properly catastrophic: it causes the disintegration of the semblance (of freedom) that pertains to social order, which equals the disintegration of the social substance itself, the dissolution of the social link.

THE UNSENT LETTER: BIG OTHER, VAGUELY EXPLAINED BY LACAN, S.#3

It is because of the virtual character of the big Other that, as Lacan put it at the very end of his “Seminar on the Purloined Letter,” a letter always arrives at its destination. One can even say that the only letter that fully and effectively arrives at its destination is the unsent letter – its true addressee is not flesh-and-blood others, but the big Other itself:

“The preservation of the unsent letter is its arresting feature. Neither the writing not the sending is remarkable (we often make drafts of letters and discard them), but the gesture of keeping the message when we have no intention of sending it. By saving the letter, we are in some sense 'sending' it after all. We are not relinquishing our idea or dismissing it as foolish or unworthy (as we do when we tear up a letter); on the contrary, we are giving it an extra vote of confidence. We are, in effect, saying that our idea is too precious to be entrusted to the actual addressee, who may not grasp its worth, so we 'send' it to his equivalent in fantasy, on whom we can absolutely count for an understanding and appreciative reading.”

Addendum: Again, Lacan in his own words:

"And why the Other with a capital O? For a no doubt mad reason, in the same way as it is madness every time we are obliged to bring in signs supplementary to those given by language. Here the mad reason is the following. You are my wife – after all, what do you know about it? You are my master – in reality, are you so sure of that? What creates the founding value of those words is that what is aimed at in the message, as well as what is manifest in the pretence, is that the other is there qua absolute Other. Absolute, that is to say he is recognized, but is not known. In the same way, what constitutes pretence is that, in the end, you don’t know whether it’s a pretence or not. Essentially it is this unknown element in the alterity of the other which characterizes the speech relation on the level on which it is spoken to the other."

Just food for thought:

Chomsky on Lacan: "amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan" (he also admits that his early works are worth analyzing). In another post I can longer find the link to, Chomsky concedes he does not actually understand many of Lacan's writings.
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html

For a rather harsh criticism of the book you are outlining:
http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol5-2001/n17oneill

"In the absence of any detectable method, a dizzying array of wildly entertaining and often quite maddening rhetorical strategies are deployed in order to beguile, browbeat, dumbfound, dazzle, confuse, mislead, overwhelm, and generally subdue the reader into acceptance. Example after example is supplied, but the principle that makes them examples is not itself given. Appeals are implicitly made to Lacan's authority but the source of that authority is never mentioned. The truth of Lacan's theories is urged by showing how other people's theories support that truth but without explaining why these theories have the same object. One concept is defined in terms of another, which is then defined in the same way, ad infinitum. What's being explained is mixed in with what's doing the explaining in a circular fashion so striking that it may well count as both a novelty and a technical innovation in the practice of interpretation. Concepts are 'applied' without any boundaries on either the concepts or the scope of their application. Arguments and interpretations are hastily summarized rather than being patiently outlined. Finally, sheer rhetorical force substitutes for argument."

http://www.uchicago.edu/research/jnl-crit-inq/issues/v29/v29n3.harpham1.html
"The effect is that of a stream of nonconsecutive units arranged in arbitrary sequences that solicit a sporadic and discontinuous attention. Zizek does not seem to believe that books should be about something; he reproduces his central themes compulsively regardless of the ostensible subject."