A Brief Comparative Analysis between Zizek and Lacan

Nathan Galvin

Eleanor Binnings – Freshman Comp

Explanatory Synthesis

Comparing Zizek’s first chapter of, “Looking Awry,” with the first section of Jacques Lacan’s lecture, “The Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real”

            How does someone use popular culture to introduce an audience to someone else’s ideas?  Well, Slavoj Zizek has done just that with Jacques Lacan’s ideas.  And, Lacan’s ideas have their roots in Sigmund Freud’s texts and research.  Making the purpose of this paper two-fold: First, it will look to examine Zizek’s notions that are found in the first chapter of, “Looking Awry,” against the backdrop of the first section of Lacan’s lecture, “The Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real”.  Second, by showing through the first prong the relation between Lacan and Zizek, it is important to show that this all stems from Sigmund Freud.  As stated, if the first goal is accomplished, the second one will follow thereafter.

            In Zizek’s, “Looking Awry,” the first chapter, From Reality to the Real, focuses on an explanation of Reality, and an explanation of what is Real.  This calls up the question, how real is reality?  It turns out, by the estimation of this text, that reality isn’t really real.  That everyone imagines or hallucinates their realities, and that the Real is a gray, formless mist.  That is, that it is a mute nothingness, moreover, it exists only in ideology.  How does he do this?  He does this through examples of literature that report the same findings.  Why this isn’t so depressing?  It’s a function that no one can escape.¹ Now, how does this relate to Lacan?

            In Lacan’s lecture, “The Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real,” in the first section, he discusses the Imaginary.  The Imaginary exists as a place for the fulfilment of non-essential satisfactions.  The essential satisfactions being the things necessary to sustain bodily life function, i.e. air to breathe, water to drink, etc.  This place is ultimately derived from desire.  And, the term he uses to describe it, is, ‘libido’.  And, with this structuring our Imaginary realm, through psychoanalysis, the way that is talked about, falls into the same structure as that of language.  What is the structure of language? Language is structured as a symbolic representation.  And that’s where the first section of the lecture ends.²   

Already, in looking at a brief synopsis of each, some comparisons between Lacan’s lecture and Zizek’s first chapter are able to be surfacely drawn.  Where do the deeper connections lie at?  By everyone imagining or hallucinating their realities, as explained by Zizek, it neatly coincides with Lacan’s description of the Imaginary itself.  Which, in turn, as Lacan stated in the introduction to his lecture, Freud’s texts should be adhered to.  Lacan says this, because his motivation for the Imaginary, was drawn from that of Freud’s Superego.  So, the causal chain here was, Freud, then Freud interpreted by Lacan, and then Lacan interpreted by Zizek. 

What else can be drawn from the two?  Zizek talks indirectly about how hard it is to entertain the Real, whereas Lacan hadn’t mentioned it much in the section of lecture addressed by this paper.  This is not a leap by Zizek, nor an oversight by Lacan.  However, it can be said that Lacan doesn’t actually address the Real overmuch in the entirety of his lecture.  Such musings will come to light in later seminars held by Lacan.  As a matter of fact, in the question and answer following the lecture, it is brought up that the Real doesn’t really get talked about, and that when they (the group at the seminar) start to approach it, something else gets in the way.  Lacan responded to the effect that it would need to be addressed in a future lecture.³

So, what can be taken from this?  In a tracing fashion, it was shown how Freud led to Lacan led to Zizek.  Zizek took Lacan’s ideas, and showed how fictional literature was in tune with the Lacanian ideas expressed.  Trying to show the universal connectedness suggested by Lacan’s posturing that the Imaginary is a function that is inescapable, and Zizek is trying to show how expressions through popular culture act as an example of that inescapability.  Although just a glimpse, these ideas are worth diving into.

End Notes

1 1.  Žižek, Slavoj. Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture. MIT, 1991. Print. Pgs 8-16

2 2. Lacan, Jacques, and Bruce Fink. On the Names-of-the-father. Malden, MA: Polity, 2013. Print. pgs 3-15

3 3. Ibid. pgs 49-52

           

My critical analysis of the first section of Lacan's lecture, "The Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real"

A Critical Analysis of the introduction and first section of Jacques Lacan’s lecture, “The Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real” as translated by Bruce Fink

            The purpose of this analysis is to look critically at what it is Jacques Lacan had to say about the Imaginary.  In addition to that, there is the additional goal of emphasizing its relation to Sigmund Freud.  It is hoped that both goals are realized concurrently through the numerous in-text citations to be provided, but one cannot always expect such to be so easy.  It should be noted that Jacques Lacan was holding this lecture on July 8, 1953. He was holding this lecture to his peers, a group which consisted of the best psychoanalysts of its time.  And, lastly, that this lecture laid the foundations for the next 30 years of his research.¹

            In the first few sentences of Lacan’s seminar, he states explicitly, “…there is no firmer grasp on human reality than that provided by Freudian psychoanalysis and that one must return to the source and apprehend, in every sense of the word, these texts.”² In other words, he’s saying that the foundations for what he is about to explain, all stems from a thorough analysis of Freud’s texts. 

After his introduction, he opens the lecture in earnest with, “One thing cannot escape us at the outset – namely, that there is in analysis a whole portion of our subjects’ reality that escapes us. It did not escape Freud when he was dealing with each of his patients, but, of course, it was just as thoroughly beyond his grasp and scope.”³ This is a rather confusing set of statements, but its purpose is to express that, even though there is this notion of the subjects’ reality that is unavailable to the analyst, and even though Freud understood that fundamentally, it was not brought explicitly to light in Freud’s texts and teachings. 

Lacan continues on in his lecture, posturing questions to his audience to make them think about and challenge their held beliefs on this notion of reality. And, of what, when the analyst engages with the analysand (that is, the subject), kind of relation she has towards the subject.  His ultimate goal, to show that the psychoanalytic experience is based in, or derived from, language, and ultimately from there, symbols.⁴

From there, he expresses, “…the subject hallucinates his world. The subject’s illusory satisfactions are…of a different order than the satisfactions that find their object purely and simply in reality.”⁵ He then alludes to the fact that, the objects that are “purely and simply in reality,” are those that are able to help sustain life.  For example, air to breathe, food to eat, and water to drink.  The rest of reality, for an individual, not necessarily just an analysand, is in a way, hallucinated.⁶

In a call to Freud, without explicit reference to him, he says, “The term ‘libido’ merely expresses the notion of reversibility that implies that there is a certain equivalence…of images.  In order to be able to conceptualize this transformation, a term related to energy is necessary. This is the purpose served by the word ‘libido’.”⁷ He goes on to demonstrate on how this libido is related to the sexual realm, and that it is within the sexual realm that the imaginary realm is born.  The reasoning for the sexual realm resides in its ability to birth desire.  Again, gesturing to the fact that the object of infatuation for giving or receiving sexual pleasure, does not satisfy one’s basic, real needs.⁸

All of this to come to, “So what does this mean?  First, it is not merely because a phenomenon represents a displacement – in other words, is inscribed in imaginary phenomena – that it is an analyzable phenomenon. Second, a phenomenon is analyzable only if it represents something other than itself.”⁹ Now this is how he closes the first section, and it comes about in respect to treating the imaginary world as a symbolic element.  In that, it is not necessary to know or understand the contents of the imaginary, but to understand it as a symbolic representation.  And, as noted in the second point, this is only subject to analysis if it stands in place of something else.¹⁰

In this analysis of the introduction and first section of, “The Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real,” much was said about the realm of the Imaginary.  Jacques Lacan did his best to sketch to his audience, the understanding of the Imaginary, a realm which escapes the purview of no person.  He shows the role that the Imaginary plays, and discusses its import with respect to psychoanalysis.  And all of this falls under the umbrella of a return to Freud’s texts and understanding. Thus establishing a firm connection between Freud and Lacan, and ultimately fulfilling the goal this paper established at its beginning.

End Notes

1 1.  Lacan, Jacques, and Bruce Fink. On the Names-of-the-father. Malden, MA: Polity, 2013. Print. Pgs vi-vii

2 2.Ibid. pg 3

3 3.Ibid. pg 5

4 4. Ibid. pgs 5-9

5 5. Ibid. pg 9

6 6. Ibid. pgs 9-12

   7. Ibid. pg 10

8 8. Ibid. pgs 12-13

9 9. Ibid. pg 14

1 10. Ibid. pgs 12-14

My summary analysis of Zizek's first chapter of, "Looking Awry"

Summary Analysis – Ch. 1 of Slavoj Zizek’s Looking Awry

            How real is reality?  It is an awkward question for one to consider, surely.  But, does it worth merit?  Philosopher/scholar Slavoj Zizek certainly seems to think so.  He has been quoted by critics to be the Rock Star philosopher of our times.¹ For someone interested in philosophy, they couldn’t go wrong by picking up a book, article, or essay written by Slavoj Zizek.  So, how real is reality? Let’s see what he has to say.

            In, From Reality to the Real, the first chapter of his book, “Looking Awry,” author Slavoj Zizek is entertaining that very question.  His answer, it doesn’t appear to be as real as one commonly understands it to be.  He does so by pointing out examples in literature, theather, or movies that support his answer to the question.  His gesturing to these examples is meant to be towards the disposition that this is something that those examples inherently know, vis a vis their expression of them.  Zizek borrows heavily from Jacques Lacan to provide these examples, and it should be noted that the subtitle to this book is, An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture.

            For example, he turns to William Shakespeare’s, Richard II, to employ his reality-isn’t-real answer.  In reference to an exchange between Bushy and the Queen, Zizek writes, “…the crucial point is the way his metaphor splits, redoubles itself, that is, the way Bushy entangles himself in contradiction.”² He then goes on to explain Bushy’s quote, Zizek states, “…if we take the comparison of the Queen’s gaze with the anamorphotic gaze literally, we are obliged to state that precisely by ‘looking awry,’ i.e., at an angle, she sees the thing in its clear and distinct form, in opposition to the ‘straightforward’ view that sees only an indistinct confusion.”³ This is his set-up for his answer.  He then goes on to state that these (the two gazes) constitute two realities.  One that when looked upon directly is “indistinct confusion,” and the other, clearly seen only when looked upon awry.  And the angle that one uses, is that of desire.⁴

            That seems to be a lot to take in.  First off, what the heck is anamorphotic? Mirriam-Webster defines it as, “producing, relating to, or marked by intentional distortion of an image.”⁵ So, it appears that he’s trying to say it is only through the intentional distortion that the Queen can see the object clearly.  Which, when combined with this expanded upon theory it seems like he’s saying reality, when looked at as it is, is indistinct and confusing.  Whereas, if one intentionally distorts their view, and looks at reality through that distortion, it seems to resolve for them.  And what is that distortion, none other than desire.  This all seems to make sense, but is also very radical.

            Another example from this chapter is Zizek’s reference to Robert Heinlein’s novel, “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag,” a story in which some rather unusual and crazy universal circumstances lead to the main character finding out the world was created by a universal artist and some touch-ups were going to be needed.  The example Zizek prepares from this, is the main character was told he wouldn’t notice the changes if, no matter what, he didn’t roll down his window on the drive home.  Well, he did, and all he and his wife could see was a gray, formless mist.  Zizek goes on to say that that gray, formless mist is reality, when looked upon directly.⁶

            So, he has tackled reality through literature yet again, and he comes up with this example.  While the brief synopsis of Heinlein’s novel offered here is but a shadow of what Zizek himself offers, it suffices to say that his notion can be compelling.  However, if one wanted to be critical, it wouldn’t be hard to brush these aside as merely fictional allusions cherry-picked to support his claim.  While, that notion is unappealing, it nevertheless should be tabled.

            All-in-all, Zizek’s answer to the question of, “How real is reality?” is- not really that real.  His detailing through fictional examples does excite one, and can be very compelling, especially through his interpretation.  Is it depressing or wanting?  At times, the answer to that is, yes.  However, it is his relating it to desire as the angle/intentional distortion through which we see reality as we do today, that really hooks one in.  Again, and more encompassing, it couldn’t hurt anyone to pick up a book, article, or essay written by Slavoj Zizek.

           

End Notes

1. "Slavoj Zizek - Biography." Slavoj Zizek. European Graduate School, Accessed 26 Apr, 2014. http://www.egs.edu/faculty/slavoj-zizek/biography/

2. Žižek, Slavoj. Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture. MIT, 1991. Print. Pgs 10-11

3. Ibid. pg 11

4. Ibid. pgs 11-12

5. "Anamorphic." Merriam-Webster.com. Accessed April 27, 2014. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anamorphic.

6. Žižek, Slavoj. Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture. MIT, 1991. Print. Pgs 12-15

Sigmund Freud

 Jacques Lacan

 Slavoj Zizek

The purpose of this blog is to help capture the role that Freud still plays in modern psychoanalysis and philosophy for that matter.  Two of the main reasons for this are Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Zizek.  As Lacan was a dutiful student of Freudian psychoanalysis, he helped to give Freud a voice in the 1950's-70's, well after many had decried Freud as a fraud and a flawed psychologist.

However, as is often said if looking casually on the internet.  There's no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water.  Or, in a human inversion example, the bath water out with the baby.

How does Zizek fit into all of this?  Well, he has picked up Lacan's thoughts, and ran with them, helping to express them to a new generation of scholars.

This is not to say that either of these gentlemen had no disagreements with Freud's theories, or let alone with one another's.  And, it is also not to say that all three of these gentlemen all had different influences on them that have taken them to the places that they were, or currently inhabit (in Zizek's case).  So, even though Freud is the basis, and this website wants to help salvage his positive contributions, these two supporters aren't what you would call party-line voters.

This is all well and good.  As this is the first post, subsequent posts will be on various topics relating to Freud, Zizek, or Lacan.  Some will be papers that are in the making, others will just be bemused thoughts.  Thanks for your time!