When Jacques Lacan announced a "return to Freud" in the early 1950s, Sartre and Camus shuddered with existential angst inside the fortress they had built around the rational mind. Indeed, the emergence of Lacan, with his emphasis on unconscious desires, spelled...
[more]When Jacques Lacan announced a "return to Freud" in the early 1950s, Sartre and Camus shuddered with existential angst inside the fortress they had built around the rational mind. Indeed, the emergence of Lacan, with his emphasis on unconscious desires, spelled the downfall of Existentialism, the philosophical darling of the time. The Existentialists believed that the unconscious plays no role in human suffering or pleasure; as the '60s began to happen, Lacan's theories swept them off France's intellectual stage.
Born in Paris in 1901, Lacan was a precocious child, excelling at both Latin and philosophy. After medical school, he took up studies in psychoanalysis. However, he always supplemented his scientific research with an active engagement in the arts and literature. He sat astounded in the crowded audience at Shakespeare & Co. when Joyce gave the first public reading of "Ulysses." Salvador Dali mentioned his name in the first issue of the famous Surrealist journal, Minotaur. And Picasso even took him on as personal physician. From all angles, the arts were always central to Lacan's thinking.
Thus when Lacan made his famous proclamation that "the unconscious is structured like a language," many saw his literary bent manifesting itself. Lacan posited that language is not a function of our identities and desires, but rather our identities and desires are functions of language. Although enigmatic for its chicken/egg conundrum, the theory appealed to many thinkers, including the feminists, who declared that society exists in its present form through the perpetuation of a patriarchal linguistic order. As a younger generation of philosophers and linguists became intrigued with his theories, Lacan began hosting his renowned weekly seminar at St. Ann's Church (out of which came his most illustrious work, "Ecrits"). Many future greats, such as Barthes, Foucault, Levi-Strauss, and Althusser, sat in on the discussions, only to scurry home to develop radical theories of their own.
In 1966, Lacan introduced what is perhaps his most famous revision of Freudianism: the 'mirror stage.' He postulated that, up until about the age of six months, an infant has no concept of itself as separate from its surroundings. However, when it looks in a mirror, the infant beholds a fully formed, self-contained being -- thus realizing a sense of separation from the environment and loss of connection. And with that loss comes the manifestation of desire and the formation of the subconscious. The subconscious acts as a subversive element in our minds, a presence that dances around and outside of consciousness, a booby trap against psychological wholeness.
To read Lacan is to tumble into an endless maze of contradictions, repetitions, and paradoxes. Just as language itself is a sinuous journey with endless associations, so too is our mind. Lacan presents his theories in the self-reflexive manner in which he believes the mind operates. His style and methodology became a touchstone for Structuralism, Poststructuralism, and Deconstruction, as well as for Marxist, Postmodern, and feminist critical thought.
[show less]
