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yellowcloudintrousers's review against another edition
One becomes visible—not only to
others but also to oneself—only through (by seeing through) the
categories constructed by a specific, historically defined society. These
categories of visibility are categories of knowledge.
incompleteness of every
meaning and position
When Lacan says that the subject is trapped in the imaginary, he means
that the subject can imagine nothing outside it; the imaginary cannot
itself provide the means that would allow the subject to transcend it
this point at which something appears
to be missing from representation, some meaning left unrevealed, is the
point of the Lacanian gaze. It marks the absence of a signified; it is an
unoccupiable point,
The subject, in
short, cannot be located or locate itself at the point of the gaze, since
this point marks, on the contrary, its very annihilation
Lacan argues, rather, that
beyond the signifying network, beyond the visual field, there is, in fact,
nothing at all
The fact that it is materially
impossible to say the whole truth—that truth always backs away from
language, that words always fall short of their goal—founds the subject.
The horrible truth, revealed to Lacan by
Petit-Jean, is that the gaze does not see you. So, if you are looking for
confirmation of the truth of your being or the clarity of your vision, you
are on your own; the gaze of the Other is not confirming; it will not
validate you
It must, rather, consist in the belief that one’s
own being exceeds the imperfections of its image. Narcissism, then,
seeks the self beyond the self-image, with which the subject constantly
finds fault and in which it constantly fails to recognize itself. What one
loves in one’s image is something more than the image (“in you more
than you”).29 Thus is narcissism the source of the malevolence with
which the subject regards its image, the aggressivity it unleashes on all
its own representations.
the subject’s narcissistic relation to the
representation that constructs him does not place him in happy accord
with the reality that the apparatus constructs for him
The effect of
representation is, instead, the suspicion that some reality is being
camouflaged, that we are being deceived as to the exact nature of some
thing-in-itself that lies behind representation. In response to such a
representation, against such a background of deception, the subject’s
own being breaks up between its unconscious being and its conscious
semblance.
Her complicity and even her pleasure are secured as she looks
at and constructs herself through the categories provided by these
discourses.
The subject constructed by language finds
itself detached from a part of itself. And it is this primary detachment
that renders fruitless all the subject’s efforts for a reunion with its
complete being
Language can
only present itself to the subject as a veil that cuts off from view a reality
that is other than what we are allowed to see.
colonialism was the historical partner of
functionalism’s rise
Through language, the
human subject maintains a symbolic relation to the world
others but also to oneself—only through (by seeing through) the
categories constructed by a specific, historically defined society. These
categories of visibility are categories of knowledge.
incompleteness of every
meaning and position
When Lacan says that the subject is trapped in the imaginary, he means
that the subject can imagine nothing outside it; the imaginary cannot
itself provide the means that would allow the subject to transcend it
this point at which something appears
to be missing from representation, some meaning left unrevealed, is the
point of the Lacanian gaze. It marks the absence of a signified; it is an
unoccupiable point,
The subject, in
short, cannot be located or locate itself at the point of the gaze, since
this point marks, on the contrary, its very annihilation
Lacan argues, rather, that
beyond the signifying network, beyond the visual field, there is, in fact,
nothing at all
The fact that it is materially
impossible to say the whole truth—that truth always backs away from
language, that words always fall short of their goal—founds the subject.
The horrible truth, revealed to Lacan by
Petit-Jean, is that the gaze does not see you. So, if you are looking for
confirmation of the truth of your being or the clarity of your vision, you
are on your own; the gaze of the Other is not confirming; it will not
validate you
It must, rather, consist in the belief that one’s
own being exceeds the imperfections of its image. Narcissism, then,
seeks the self beyond the self-image, with which the subject constantly
finds fault and in which it constantly fails to recognize itself. What one
loves in one’s image is something more than the image (“in you more
than you”).29 Thus is narcissism the source of the malevolence with
which the subject regards its image, the aggressivity it unleashes on all
its own representations.
the subject’s narcissistic relation to the
representation that constructs him does not place him in happy accord
with the reality that the apparatus constructs for him
The effect of
representation is, instead, the suspicion that some reality is being
camouflaged, that we are being deceived as to the exact nature of some
thing-in-itself that lies behind representation. In response to such a
representation, against such a background of deception, the subject’s
own being breaks up between its unconscious being and its conscious
semblance.
Her complicity and even her pleasure are secured as she looks
at and constructs herself through the categories provided by these
discourses.
The subject constructed by language finds
itself detached from a part of itself. And it is this primary detachment
that renders fruitless all the subject’s efforts for a reunion with its
complete being
Language can
only present itself to the subject as a veil that cuts off from view a reality
that is other than what we are allowed to see.
colonialism was the historical partner of
functionalism’s rise
Through language, the
human subject maintains a symbolic relation to the world
colin_cox's review against another edition
5.0
Early in Joan Copjec's Read My Desire: Lacan Against the Historicists, she describes the predominant distinction between Lacanian psychoanalysis and Foucauldian historicism as one of desire, specifically how and what each of these approaches does with desire. She writes, "Psychoanalysis, via Lacan, maintains that the exclusivity of the surface or of appearance must be interpreted to mean that appearance always routs or supplants being, that appearance and being never coincide. It is this syncopated relation that is the condition of desire. Historicism, on the other hand, wants to ground being in appearance and wants to have nothing to do with desire." As it relates to being, according to Copjec, psychoanalysis sees discord. By contrast, historicism seeks to repress discord. As she later explains, historicism "refuses to believe in repression." In The Sublime Object of Ideology, Slavoj Zizek makes a similar point about "appearance and being" never coinciding when he writes, "The subject is constituted through his own division, splitting" (204).
This distinction matters for Copjec. She suggests that too often these two theories (Lacanian psychoanalysis on one side and Foucauldian historicism on the other), "have failed to be perceived as different." The shape of historicism many credit to Foucault was the dominant mode of critical inquiry when Copjec published Read My Desire in 1994. Copjec wants to unmoor Lacan from Foucault by emphasizing the radicality of Lacan and psychoanalysis. Copjec explains how historicism disentangles the jumbled, messy contours of being. Psychoanalysis, by contrast, attempts to sustain and reveal those messy contours.
Copjec also returns her reader's understanding of the gaze to its psychoanalytic roots. Laura Mulvey popularized a reading of the gaze in film studies as a process that places spectators in a default male position. Because of the constitutive role of the male gaze, women or "the woman" become objects of desire. This gaze creates the conditions for women to be either voyeuristic objects or fetishistic objects. Conversely, Copjec reads the Lacanian gaze as "located 'behind' the image, as that which fails to appear in it and thus as that which makes all its meanings suspect." Copjec continues, "The gaze is not clear or penetrating, not filled with knowledge or recognition; it is clouded over and turned back on itself, absorbed in its own enjoyment." As I read it, the gaze is not something the subject can channel or harness because "The subject is the effect of the impossibility of seeing what is lacking in the representation, what the subject, therefore, wants to see. The gaze, the object-cause of desire, is the object-cause of the subject of desire in the field of the visible. In other words, it is what the subject does not see and not simply what it sees that founds it." Therefore, what the subject does not see establishes subjectivity. The gaze structures the subject; it is not a weapon the subject deploys.
Copjec also clarifies significant differences between desire and drive and how both modes affect and influence the subject. She writes, "The psychoanalytical subject is not infinite, it is finite, limited, and it is this limit that causes the infinity, or unsatisfiability, of its desire. One thing comes to be substituted for another in an endless chain only because the subject is cut off from that essential thing that would complete it." She continues, "The subject is never fully determinate according to psychoanalysis, which treats this indeterminateness as a real feature of the subject. This is why the historicist response to the psychoanalytic concept of the subject is so misguided. The response...approaches the universal subject as a vague concept that can, with more or less effort and a better knowledge of history, be given more precise attributes." Certain words and phrases ("finite," "cut off," and "indeterminateness") are essential for understanding psychoanalysis's approach to the subject, especially in contrast to historicism. Recognizing the subject as barred flies in the face of, as Copjec's sees it, historicism's desire to unknot and disavow contradictions and inconsistencies. This is what is at stake for psychoanalysis. It wants all of us to see the degrees of inconsistency that are constitutive to our being.
This distinction matters for Copjec. She suggests that too often these two theories (Lacanian psychoanalysis on one side and Foucauldian historicism on the other), "have failed to be perceived as different." The shape of historicism many credit to Foucault was the dominant mode of critical inquiry when Copjec published Read My Desire in 1994. Copjec wants to unmoor Lacan from Foucault by emphasizing the radicality of Lacan and psychoanalysis. Copjec explains how historicism disentangles the jumbled, messy contours of being. Psychoanalysis, by contrast, attempts to sustain and reveal those messy contours.
Copjec also returns her reader's understanding of the gaze to its psychoanalytic roots. Laura Mulvey popularized a reading of the gaze in film studies as a process that places spectators in a default male position. Because of the constitutive role of the male gaze, women or "the woman" become objects of desire. This gaze creates the conditions for women to be either voyeuristic objects or fetishistic objects. Conversely, Copjec reads the Lacanian gaze as "located 'behind' the image, as that which fails to appear in it and thus as that which makes all its meanings suspect." Copjec continues, "The gaze is not clear or penetrating, not filled with knowledge or recognition; it is clouded over and turned back on itself, absorbed in its own enjoyment." As I read it, the gaze is not something the subject can channel or harness because "The subject is the effect of the impossibility of seeing what is lacking in the representation, what the subject, therefore, wants to see. The gaze, the object-cause of desire, is the object-cause of the subject of desire in the field of the visible. In other words, it is what the subject does not see and not simply what it sees that founds it." Therefore, what the subject does not see establishes subjectivity. The gaze structures the subject; it is not a weapon the subject deploys.
Copjec also clarifies significant differences between desire and drive and how both modes affect and influence the subject. She writes, "The psychoanalytical subject is not infinite, it is finite, limited, and it is this limit that causes the infinity, or unsatisfiability, of its desire. One thing comes to be substituted for another in an endless chain only because the subject is cut off from that essential thing that would complete it." She continues, "The subject is never fully determinate according to psychoanalysis, which treats this indeterminateness as a real feature of the subject. This is why the historicist response to the psychoanalytic concept of the subject is so misguided. The response...approaches the universal subject as a vague concept that can, with more or less effort and a better knowledge of history, be given more precise attributes." Certain words and phrases ("finite," "cut off," and "indeterminateness") are essential for understanding psychoanalysis's approach to the subject, especially in contrast to historicism. Recognizing the subject as barred flies in the face of, as Copjec's sees it, historicism's desire to unknot and disavow contradictions and inconsistencies. This is what is at stake for psychoanalysis. It wants all of us to see the degrees of inconsistency that are constitutive to our being.
alexmjjohnson's review against another edition
4.0
Would be five stars if the last chapter on Judith Butler weren't entirely incomprehensible to someone who doesn't have a PHd in Lacanian theory
miguel's review
5.0
This book is incredible. Not because every argument is bulletproof, but because it is audacious, comprehensive, and necessary. To separate Lacan and Foucault is an essential task in modern philosophy/critical theory. To understand the functioning of historicism and the science of psychoanalysis is equally crucial. Copjec aids her readers in achieving these goals. As heart-stopping as Copjec's introduction is, Foucault is less involved in this text than one might realize. Instead, Copjec spends her time deep in the complexities of Lacan's thinking, exposing obvious contradictions with historicism and Foucault's major work.
Copjec's introduction is wonderful and serves as a great mission statement for the project of this text. Copjec aligns the primal father of Freud's Totem and Taboo, the death drive, and the generative principle of a given society (as opposed to its 'cultural content') as extra-discursive figures of a different order of what they precipitate (the society of equal brothers, the pleasure principle, and the aforementioned cultural content respectively.) This paradigm is crucial to all of Copjec's arguments as they proceed, and she seeks to analyze what desire evinces despite it potentially existing outside of the sphere of discourse. Copjec claims, via Lacan, that desire can be articulated even if it is not manifest in discourse in the way that what desire precipitates is manifest.
The strongest chapters beyond the introduction are the 3rd and 6th. Still, just about every one has some value. The 6th chapter, in particular, deserves special attention in the age of Trump. Copjec even mentions Trump in the same breath as Reagan! I imagine her sense of vindication is a vexed one. Copjec argues that the media attacks on Reagan could never destroy the object a, the object cause of desire, that made American's love him. Critics of Trump would be wise to consider this chapter closely, and Copjec's call for a cultural studies literate in desire more broadly.
Brilliant thinkers can't always be right, however. Copjec is at her worst making baffling conflations of indeterminate terms. In her final chapter, she uses Lacan's articulation of sexual intercourse to make a critique of sexual difference. This is an enormous mistake. Intercourse and sexual difference must be taken differently, outside of the linguistic accident that one word, 'sex,' can refer to both. Overall, her final chapter leaves a lot to be desired. Still, it is a fascinating argument that offers a worthwhile, if incomplete, rendering of Lacan's writing on sex/gender.
I would much prefer a big failure to a small success. However, Copjec manages to mostly succeed, and her minimal failures stem from an argument audacious enough to make them marvelous in their own right. Copjec's missteps are worth more consideration than most thinker's most valued contributions to philosophy.
Copjec's introduction is wonderful and serves as a great mission statement for the project of this text. Copjec aligns the primal father of Freud's Totem and Taboo, the death drive, and the generative principle of a given society (as opposed to its 'cultural content') as extra-discursive figures of a different order of what they precipitate (the society of equal brothers, the pleasure principle, and the aforementioned cultural content respectively.) This paradigm is crucial to all of Copjec's arguments as they proceed, and she seeks to analyze what desire evinces despite it potentially existing outside of the sphere of discourse. Copjec claims, via Lacan, that desire can be articulated even if it is not manifest in discourse in the way that what desire precipitates is manifest.
The strongest chapters beyond the introduction are the 3rd and 6th. Still, just about every one has some value. The 6th chapter, in particular, deserves special attention in the age of Trump. Copjec even mentions Trump in the same breath as Reagan! I imagine her sense of vindication is a vexed one. Copjec argues that the media attacks on Reagan could never destroy the object a, the object cause of desire, that made American's love him. Critics of Trump would be wise to consider this chapter closely, and Copjec's call for a cultural studies literate in desire more broadly.
Brilliant thinkers can't always be right, however. Copjec is at her worst making baffling conflations of indeterminate terms. In her final chapter, she uses Lacan's articulation of sexual intercourse to make a critique of sexual difference. This is an enormous mistake. Intercourse and sexual difference must be taken differently, outside of the linguistic accident that one word, 'sex,' can refer to both. Overall, her final chapter leaves a lot to be desired. Still, it is a fascinating argument that offers a worthwhile, if incomplete, rendering of Lacan's writing on sex/gender.
I would much prefer a big failure to a small success. However, Copjec manages to mostly succeed, and her minimal failures stem from an argument audacious enough to make them marvelous in their own right. Copjec's missteps are worth more consideration than most thinker's most valued contributions to philosophy.
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