The Freudian Subject, from Politics to Ethics Author(s): Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen and Richard Miller Reviewed work(s): Source:

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The Freudian Subject, From Politics to Ethics*

MIKKEL

BORCH-JACOBSEN
MILLER I haveno conscience. Fiihrer myconThe is

translatedby RICHARD

science.

- Hermann Goering

Whenone has a senseofguiltafter having a and because it, the committed misdeed, of feeling should more properlybe called remorse. It relates onlyto a deedthathas been and ofcourse, presupposes a it that done,
conscience
-

place. .

. . But if the human sense of guilt of primal goes backto thekilling the father, thatwas after a caseof"remorse. we all "Are to assumethatat thattimea senseofguilt was not,as we have in presupposed, existence the in before deed?If not,where, thiscase, did theremorse from? come -

was already existence in the before deedtook

the readiness to feel guilty

and Freud, Civilization Its Discontents

power or moral taboo-most

It mightseem strangethat I should approach the notion of "the subject in psychoanalysis"fromthe angle of politics and Freudian ethics. Afterall, isn't the subject with which psychoanalysis deals-and treats-first and foremost the individual, in all his remarkable resistance to the ethical and political of prescriptions society?Why then, you may well ask, should we consider this implacably singular subjectivityfromthe point of view of what- as political
often oppresses it, shackles it, or censures it? And

* Lecture delivered inJune 1986 at the PsychoanalyticInstitutein Paris as part of a seminar conducted by Drs. Wilgowicz and Gillibert.

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is it not a fact that the most intractablefeatureof the desiring subject is precisely its tendency to balk at being reduced to what Freud named the social "ego," the political "ego ideal," the moral "superego"? Perhaps. We may still wonder, however, why Freud himself,afterhaving set up this immense antagonism between desiring subjectivityand the various "egoist" formsof reto pression, thenkept on trying reduce it, eitherby rootingthe ego in the id, by analyzing the libidinal structureof the linkage of political submission to the Ego-Ideal-Father-Leader, or even by revealingthe Oedipal originof the moral superego. The question remains, in otherwords, whetherwhat we stubbornly of of persistin calling the subject desire or the subject the unconscious can really be so easily distinguishedfromwhat we no less stubbornly of persistin thinking as its Other-that is, in no particularorder, the symbolicFather, Law, prohibition, society,power ... It itjust as well to state at the outset that nothingseems more fragilethan in such a distinction.Indeed, everything the Freudian textconspiresto suggest the identity the identification of the desiringsubject and this"Other"which would at first glance seem to be opposed to it, to alienate it, divide it, or separate it fromitself.In short,and to anticipate the ultimate goal of my text, I might sameas the other. The forsay thatthe Freudian subject is the other,that it is the mulation is obviously ambiguous, and we must therefore employ it prudently, "literallyand in all its senses." For, as must be clear by now, it involves two notions or "versions"of the subject, depending upon the emphavery different sis put upon it. Thus, eitherwe understand thatthe Other is the sameas the subassimilates ject, in which case the latter,always identical to itself, triumphantly or absorbs into itselfthat otherness- this is the dialectical and, in Freud, the versionof our formula.Or, on the contrary, understandthe subject we political, to be the sameas theOther-and at once the formulabecomes more difficult to at once we no longerknow who or what thissubject is thathad just understand, seemed so obvious, nor do we know ifwe are stilldealing with a subject. I am not sure that we should, if we want to be rigorous, even contrastthis second "version"with the first.To do so is to forceit into a dialectical mold, whereas actually we need only put a different emphasis on what is the samenotion. And it does indeed exist in Freud, in which it serves to indicate what I call, forwant of a betterterm,an ethical beyond of the subject. At least, that is what I should like to demonstratehere, convinced as I am that it is here, in thisinfinitesimal, of imperceptibledifference emphasis, that Freud's notion of the subject is ultian to mately played out. For me, it also affords opportunity extend, while reorientingthem somewhat, certain analyses I have previouslypublished on this question of the "Freudian subject." Before we turn to the Freudian hesitation between a "politics"and an "ethics"of the subject, however, we ought to achieve some agreement on the significance and implications of this little and apparently so obvious, so - word: subject.Nowadays - I've just been doing it myselfwith transparent

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withtermslike subject desire, comparative ease - we seem to have no difficulty of And yet, are we reallysure thatwe alsubject the of subconscious, subject offantasy. ways know what we mean by the word in such contexts?For example, do we know the history,the origin, the genealogy of the term? In this connection it in mightbe useful to recall that it occurs fairlyinfrequently Freud, who preferredto speak of the "ego," the "id," the "superego,"or even of the "conscious" and the "unconscious." So we ought perhaps to begin by recognizingat the outset thatthe "subject"comes down to us, not fromFreud himself,but froma certain interpretation his work: it is from Lacan and his "returnto Freud," of in the early 1950s, that we must date the intemperateuse of the word begun subject French psychoanalysts. by Now, thisword, as Lacan was well aware, is taken over fromphilosophy. We mighteven designate it as the key term of Western metaphysics. For the the individual, and it is even less the psychologicalego to subject is not, first, which we nowadays so oftenfindit reduced. Above all, it designates the hypoor the keimenon, "underlying" "subjacent" goal of basic, foundingphilosophical inquiry, the quest forwhich is posed, supposed, and presupposed in Book VII of Aristotle's ti Metaphysics: toon, "What is being as being?" And, as Heidegger has demonstrated,it is only to the extentthat it is the heir, in the formof the Cartesian Cogito, this ultimatebasic position, the ultimum to that subjectum, the egobecomes a "subject"in the word's properlymodern sense. Nor should thisbe understood in the sense of an egoist subjectivist or determinationof being, but, to rather,in the sense thatbeing qua being is henceforth be conceived ofaccording to the initiallyCartesian notion of the auto-foundationor auto-positioning of a subject presentingitselfto itselfas consciousness, in the representation or in the will, in labor or in desire, in the State or in the work of art. Thus, it is this modern (and indeed, as can be preciselyshown, actually Cartesian) concept of subject that Lacan has imported into psychoanalysis withthe success of which we are all aware. Since othershave already done so, I shall not dwell here on the theoreticaland institutional stakes involved in that nor on the complex conceptual "corruptions"'to which it has given operation, rise. I should merelylike in a verypreliminary way to draw attentionto its funcharacter. For obviously thisappeal to the philosopheme damentallyequivocal of the subject (as well as to thatof otherconcepts: "truth," "desire,""intersubjec"dialectics,""alienation,"etc.) should enable us to restorethe trenchant tivity," quality of the Freudian textby riddingit of all psychologismor biologism. But hence the been retained, why, in the end, has the word--and invested with all particularlywhen it was simultaneouslybeingconcept--subject the HeidegWasn't it rather gerian de(con)struction of the "metaphysicsof subjectivity"? of more, as Lacan indicated in "The mirrorstage as formative the functionof
1. The phrase is taken fromPhilippe Lacoue-Labarthe and J. L. Nancy, Le Titrede la lettre, Paris, Galilee, 1973.

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the I," a question of abstractingthe psychoanalyticexperience of the I "from And indeed, would any philosophy directly descendant from the Cogito"?2 Freud have been given a second's philosophical attentionhad he not precisely contributed,more than anyone else, to a requestioningof the notion of subject qua Ego, subject present to itselfin consciousness, in the representation,or in the wish? Nor is it a question of overlookingthe factthat the Lacanian subject is the originallydivided, split subject of desire, the profoundlysubjected suband of language - nothing, we can therefore ject of the signifier say, like the transcendentaland absolute subject of the philosophersor like its pale successor, the strong and autonomous ego of the ego psychologists.However, this that decentredsubject, reduced to only the desire forthatpart of itself infinitely language simultaneouslyarouses and forbidsit fromrejoining, this subject is stilla subject. For Lacan, very enigmatically,stillretainsthe word- that is, at least the pure positionof the subject. That such a position,fromthe veryfactof its being linguistic,is tantamountto a de-positionor dis-appearance does not if apparently make much difference a fortiori the subject'sfadingor aphanisis occurs throughwhat we persistin describingas an auto-utterance.Emptied of any substance, in all rigornull, the subject continues to subsist in the representation its lack, in the closed combinative of signifiers which it stubbornly in of continuesto self-represent but always reemerging itself, always vanishing upon its disappearance. It is not my intentionhere, however,to analyze in any detail thispowerful entologyof the subject, the more powerfulin that it is advanced in the guise of a kind of negative ego-logyavid to assail the "imaginaryego" and the "subject in to supposed to know." I have neverthelessmade briefreference it, first, anticipationof further analyses because today it representsboth the horizon and the condition of the possibilityof any investigationof the "subject in psychoto analysis." Secondly, and above all, I have referred it because it seems to me thatit functions a real symptom. ifwe reallythinkabout it, how are we to as For, this unexpected resurfacingof the subject smack in the middle of a interpret discourse devoted to a critique of the authorityof the consciousness and the illusions of the ego? Once the many conceptual "corruptions" Lacan has made of the Freudian textare taken intoaccount, oughtwe not ask what, even in Freud restorationof the subject? Must himself,has broughtabout this surreptitious we not finallysuspect the radicalityand the depth of the break Freud made on behalf of the unconscious? In short, ought we not returnto Freud, yes, but, with Freud, to his philosophical underpinnings,which alone can provide us with a key to the confused fate of psychoanalysisin France? It is useless to conceal the factthatthatis what I attemptedto do in Le sujet I freudien. thought it might be timely,that it was even urgent, to wonder if,
2. Paris, Seuil, 1966, p. 93. Jacques Lacan, Ecrits,

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behind the apparentlyradical contestation conscience and ego, the schema of of the subject was not continuingsilentlyto command the theoryand practiceand even the politics- of psychoanalysis.In short,I wanted to know the extent to which the "fundamentalconcepts" of psychoanalysiswere still prisonersof or, contrariwise, might have escaped the appeal of foundation for that is in fact, what is at stake in the "subject." always, And, indeed, once the question has been couched in those terms,is it not obvious that,in providinghimself withan unconscious made up of"representations," "thoughts,""fantasies,""memorytraces," Freud had at the same time provided himselfwith a subject of representation,imagination, memory- in but merelyconceived as being more short,with the material fora new Cogito, basic and more subjectival than the conscious ego? For let us not forget thatthe and foremostthe subject of representation- we subject of the moderns is first can even go so faras to say: the subject as representation and the representation as subject. I would recall that it is by representing itself, posing itself,in the by mode of the cogito cogitare, me "with"all the representation poses beforeitself, it thatthe Cartesian ego establishes itself the basis of all possible truth,i.e., as as of subjectum the total being. Thus, we must take care not to reduce the subject to the ego. In reality,the latteris nothingoutside the cogitatio withinwhich it presents itself, to itself, that it is reallyrather so conscientiously,con-scientifically, the structureof representationas auto-representation that should be dubbed the trueand ultimatesubject. In thissense, in attempting qualifythisradical to to the self he dubbed "unconscious," Freud could scarcely have nonpresence chosen a more unfortunate termthan representation For (Vorstellung).3 to speak of unconscious "representations" was obviously to signal the existence of something beyond the subject, since I- I, the ego- was thus supposed to have thatcould thinkwithoutme. But, too, it had the inevitable thoughts(Gedanken) consequence of reinstatingin that beyond another ego (always, of course, the same one), since there must necessarilybe a spectatorof that "otherscene"forsuch representations require a subject that representsthem to itselfas well as representingitselfin them. This is the powerful constraint that brought Lacan to write, apropos the linguistic"otherscene," that "the signifier what is And it is also what obliged Freud representsthe subject foranother signifier." to substantize- in other words, to subjectivize- unconscious with which he the was dealing in an "unconscious," or an "id." The various topographieserected since the Project testimonyto this constant substratification the psychoare of more fragmented, more broken down, and yet always analytic subject, always more deeply led down to its own prebeginnings. The multiplicationof topographic agencies and "personages" in this sense contravenesthe subject's unity
3. As Michel Henry has recently noted in Gindalogiede la psychanalyse, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1985; I shall have more to say elsewhere on this admirable and highly importantbook ("L'inconscient revisitS,"in preparation).

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and identitymuch less than it supposes it: the subject can be divided only because it is onesubject. Finally, neitherthe notion of some primaryrepression would have caused Freud to question his stubnor even of some "after-shock" bornlyheld notion of a subject already given, already present (underlying)in its representations. And, in thisconnection,we can be sure thathe would have founddevoid of any meaning at all the notion so dear to Emmanuel Levinas of some "trauma" having affectedthe subjectivityanterior to itself,prior to any to representation,to any memory, and, therefore, any repression. According to Freud, the unconscious is memory,a storehouse of traces, inscriptions,remembrances, fantasies. And this memory must be underlaid, traumatic and as fracturing it may be, by a subject to which and in which it representsitselfthe subject of fantasy,the backing forthe inscriptionor the substance hospitable to nervous "facilitations." Does calling thiseternal representational subject "desire"change anything at all? Probably not. Desire, understoodas libido, drive, or fantasmatic wish, is a subject, at least insofaras it is described as desire foran object. Let always such an object, indeed, be described as fantasmaticand even as "basicallylost," as it cannot be preventedfromemerging,withoutmystery, the object fora subject, beforea subject. For us othermoderns, the object is always the object of a a puts it, as a setting-before, representing (i.e., as the German so descriptively and Vor-stellen), this evidence continues to be valid when we understand it as the object of some desire, some libido, some drive. We may only wonder why, in Freud, the "drive"is only accessible throughits objects: it is because he only conceives it as representedto or beforethe psyche-or: the subect. This latter must thus be presupposed to underlie the object in which it sets beforeitself its or its enjoyment and in which, simultaneously, it sets itself before pleasure itself,representsitself.From this viewpoint,by conceiving the object of desire as that"part"thatlanguage and representation deduct or remove fromthe subthis basically auto-representative structure desire. of Lacan only confirms ject, "small a" eludes the subject so totallyonly because the latter has first Object representeditselfin it: thus, it subsists-breast or feces, gaze or voice-in the representationof its absence, its lack-of-being-itself. believe that it is in the directionof this objectival conI do not, therefore, ception of desire thatwe should seek, in Freud, material foran in-depthsolicitationof the schema of the subject. On the otherhand, the same does not quite hold true ifwe turn to some other, much more problematic,aspect of Freud's theoryof desire. This is the aspect that deals withdesire of the ego, an expression we must here consider in all its genitiveimplications,subjectiveand objective. Indeed, we know that veryearly on Freud feltconstrainedto make room alongside the desire forthe object which he discerned in sexualityforan "egoist" desire, a desire to be oneselfor to be-an-ego, which he began by calling "egoistic" and then "narcissistic," and which he ended up by attachingclosely to the I shall not go into the details- they are well known to identification process.

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all- of the various stages of this clarifyingprocess, via the themes of the "egoism"of dreams, and fantasies,homosexuality, paranoia, or passionate love. Yet I must emphasize here the importance of that process, forwe oftenreally fail to appreciate in Freud the implicationsof this shifting and displacementof interest.Indeed, his emphasis on the violent passion the ego conceives for(or devotes to) itselfwas not only to overturnthe initiallyobjectival definition of all affect the investigationsinto the repressing"ego" to desire, and henceforth which Freud, in a lettertoJung, confessedhe had not paid sufficient attention.4 It into question the subject of desire, also--obscurely, problematically--called the subject of the desiringrepresentation, which he had so tenaciouslyposited hitherto. Now, with what are we dealing here vis-a-visthis desire Freud described as "egoist"or "narcissistic"? First and foremost,with being an "I," a "self"- in freedfromall bonds, in thissense abotherwords, a subject: shut withinitself, to solute. But ifI desire be (an) I, ifI desire it myself, must, following elementary be because I am not it. Thus, this singular desire, by and large, is the logic, desire of no subject. When, forexample, Freud wrotethat the ideal of the narcissisticego is "what we would like to be"5 or, withregard to identification, that that is an "emotional tie with another person" who one desires tobe(in contrast to the object one desires tohave),6 was clearlyemphasizing the abyssal nature he of narcissisticpassion. For that ego-being (ego-ness, we mightsay, the essence and foundationof identity ego),thatbeing does not exist withinme: it is elseas where ego,in this who fascinatesme, in whom I love other--always alter--Ego huic.Or, better, myself,in whom I killmyself.ThusI am thatother; egosumalter a more Freudian version of thisother,verydifferent, "I Cogito: am the breast."7 By the strangestand yet the most logical of paradoxes, with Freud the attention devoted to the ego's narcissism led to the question of the Other, of others. The question was to haunt him fromthen on, the more so in that this "other"- model or rival, homosexual figureor persecutor always appeared to be becoming more and more like the ego, to the point of shattering veryobthe them. This is obviously why the great textson the second position separating topographyare an inextricablemix of"ego analysis"and analysis of the culture or social tie: the otheris no longer an object, an Objekt, whence the need to pay attentionto nonerotic,"social" relationships,to others; and, inversely,the ego is no longera subject,whence the need to inscribethis"sociality" theego itself, in in the formof identification, superego, etc. Thus, since the ego was originally 4. ed. SigmundFreud,C. G. Jung, TheFreud/Jung Letters, WilliamMcGuire, trans.Ralph Princeton Manheim,Princeton, Press,1974. University 5. Editionof theComplete ed. Freud, The Standard Works, and trans.James Psychological for London, HogarthPressand the Institute Psycho-Analysis, Strachey, XIV, p. 90. 6. Freud,SE, XVIII. p. 105. 7. Freud,SE, XXIII, p. 299.

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withothersor the otherprincipallyassimilated to the ego, everything identified of played a part, in a multiplicity ways, in weakening thejoint mutual position of subject and object, or, put another way, the position of the subject of the representation.For that is, in the end, the ultimate implication of the entire and incorporation:if I am discourse on narcissism,the primaryidentification, him since the exteriority which he in the other,then I no longer represent tomyself, or mighthave pro-posed himselfto me - eitheras model or as object, Vor-bild Ob-jekt-has faded away. And, at the same time, I have become unable to represent me,to present myselfto myselfin my presence: this other that I am no identified me, longer is and never was before because I have straightaway myself with him, because I have fromthe outset assimilated him, eaten him, incorporated him. True, this That, this Id, which is nothing other than the ex- "subject of to But desire," is difficult envisage, and in any event impossible to represent. is it not toward that, that unrepresentable"point of the other"to which Freud was tendingwhen he stated, forexample, that the ego emerges througha "primary to identification," adding that thatprimitive relationship the object immediately amounts to its destroyingincorporation?Or elsewhere, when he attemptedto describe, under various names, such as "primarynarcissism,""animism,""the omnipotence of thoughts," "magic," a typeof mental operation that ignoresthe distinction between ego and others,between subject and object, between desire and its fulfillment? And is it not afterall in the directionof thisbasically unrepresentable thought,thoughtof no subject at all, that we should be seeking the ever-elusive"unconscious"? I have just noted, however,thatall thisis difficult think.I should quickly to add that Freud himselfhad enormous troublein dealing withthisproblem. For Freud also most frequently thisnarcissism,thisdesire-to-be-oneself interpreted that so radically disrupts any notion of a "self," as a desire of oneself by in its oneself- short,as a subject's auto-affirmation, auto-position,or itscircular We need only recall, in "On Narcissism: An Introduction," the auto-conception. enclosed withinthemselves,of narcissisticChild and fascinating figures,totally Woman. Or the theoryof primarynarcissismsecondarily"granted"and "withdrawn" vis-a-visobjects: everything begins with and returnsto Narcissus, who never loses himselfin objects otherthan to findhimselfin them and represent himselfin them mirrorwise,in specula-tion, It specula-tively. is this retrievalof the narcissisticego in the specularyotherthatLacan has described by using the termImaginary-but,of course, in order virulently denounce the deception, to the illusion. Yet by retaining,if not the ego, at least its image, too has evihe dently allowed himselfto be won over, in an apparent reversal, by the autorepresentativestructureof narcissisticdesire. That the ego can imagine itself outside itself, beforeitself the mirror otherholds up to it, in in the imagine itself no way, in fact,contravenesits auto-position,since it is preciselythe principle of thisauto-ob-position . . As forstigmatizing "alienation"of the narcissistic . the

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ego withinthe imaginary"otherself,"that only serves to give some additional to dialecticcharacterofthe processbeing described. confirmation the profoundly For the Lacan of "The Mirror Phase," as forthe Freud of "On Narcissism: An itself- and thus, inevitably,to repthe ego continues to represent Introduction," in reflection which it loves and deresent itself-in the specular mirror-image sires itself. that such Freudian or Lacanian interpretations It is my belief, therefore, narcissistic desire in the of narcissismalso require interpretation. They interpret of line of desire theysubscribe to a certain auto-interpretation desire, whereas to a thislatteris, clearly,a desire bea subject, desire to be oneselfto oneselfwithin and autonomy. In this sense, the narcissismthesisdoes an inalienated identity more than manifest,sometimescrudelyand sometimeswithmore subtlety, the fascinatedsubmissionofpsychoanalysisto the paradigm of the "subject." It also attests,in a turnaround,to the narcissisticcharacter of that paradigm. Thus, as I have triedto indicate here or there,when we say that psychoanalysisis in its essence deeply narcissisticand that, in a sometimescaricatural way, it reinstates the ancient and always new problematic of the "subject," we are saying one and the same thing.

Now, to get to the point, it is obviously in Freud's so-called "political"or is "sociological"textsthat this reinstatement most flagrant,most massive. This is all the more striking that the Freudian examination of culture and social in tie corresponds in the first instance, as I have said, to the constrainingmovement thathas tiltedthe question of the narcissisticego towardsthatof the other who inwardly haunts and obsesses it. And indeed, it was under the title of that the great 1921 political textGroup Andere and Analy(the Other) Psychology the sis oftheEgo opened: "In the individual's mental lifethe other is invariablyinvolved," Freud began, "as a model, . . . as a helper, as an opponent; and from the very first, individual psychology. . . is at the same time social psychology as well."8 An admirable statement,and one that does, by thus inscribingthe other in the ego, appear to contain in embryoa whole nonsubjectival theoryof the "subject"and "social relationship."Yet one need only read the textof Group to Psychology realize that the embryo does not develop and remains stillborn, stifledas it is by a problematic of the political Subject. In short since we do not have space to describe here in any detail the excomplex course of this essay- Freud, when it comes down to it, traordinarily continuallypresupposes, in his attemptto explain the social relationship,a subject of the relationship, whether as an "individual" subject or as a supra8. Freud,SE, XVIII, p. 69.

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individual, political subjectivity.On the one hand, indeed, his analysis begins with the desire, the love, or the libido of individuals, who are consequently posited as preexistentto the various erotico-objectivalrelationshipsthat link them together.And, on the other hand, once we recognize the fundamental fact that, in crowds, all subjectivityand all individual desire disappears, the analysis comes up with a kind of political super-Subject in the dual shape of a narcissisticchief and of the mass, the latter welded togetherby love to their Chief. We all recall the famousconclusion: society,Freud informs is a unanus, imous "mass" whose members have set up the same "object" (the "leader" or in "Fiihrer") place of theirego ideal and who, as a result of so doing, identify, reciprocallyand among themselves,with each other. Having said that, we have firstsaid that society- any society- is in esbecause it depends totallyupon the figureof a Chief, a sovereign sence political, and withoutwhich it would purelyand simply head in which it representsitself fall apart. Yet we are also saying that society- any society- is fundamentally, Not, I hasten to add, because State coercion or tyrannical basically, totalitarian. violence would be essential to it. That traitis not confinedto totalitariansocieties, and Freud is clear thatthe reignofthe Fiihrer depends above all on thefiction of his love. No, ifFreud's societyis totalitarianin a strict and rigoroussense, it is because it is posited as an integrally as Staatknowing political totality, a totale no division, unless it be minimal and intendedsolelyto relate the social body to itselfbetween the beloved Chief and his loving subjects. This is further borne out by the speculative biology underlyingthe descriptionin GroupPsychology, because thattends, on the grounds of"union"and eroticBindung, turnsociety to into an actual organism, a real body politic. As Claude Leforthas shown in his expansion on Kantorowicz's work,9this is the totalitarianfantasy par excellence. It is the profoundlynarcissisticfantasyof a single, homogeneous body proper or recognizingno exteriority othernessvis-a-vis itselfother than in relation to itself.And it is thus the fantasy,the auto-representation a subject: forFreud, of is a compact group, a mass, and that mass makes a single body withthe society that embodies, incarnates it. Chief-Subject Of course, it is not a matterof declaringthatthatdescriptionis false. Too many examples in recent historyconfirmit forus to doubt its exactness and precision. From this viewpoint, I too am prepared to recognize, with Serge Moscovici,10 the exceptional importance of Freudian "group psychology"for any understandingofthe political and social factsof our time. But we must also recognize that Freud did not so much analyze this totalitarianfantasyas subscribe to it. For, contraryto what he is purported to have said here or there (and this was, inter alia, Lacan's thesis, or myth"1),Freud never criticized
9.

The Princeton 1981; E. Kantorowicz, King'sTwoBodies, Princeton, Press, 1959. University 10. Serge Moscovici,L'agedesfoules, Paris, Fayard,1981. 11. Lacan, Ecrits, 474-475: "For our purposeswe mustbeginwiththeremark, neverto pp.

in Claude Lefort, "L'imagedu corpset le totalitarisme," L'invention Paris, Fayard, dbnocratique,

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"group psychology,"convinced as he was, on the contrary,that it represented the very essence of society. Thus, he never questioned the primacy of the sentence: Chief, going so far as to write (to Einstein) the followingterrifying "One instanceof the innate and ineradicable inequalityof men is theirtendency to fallinto the two classes of leaders (Fiihrer)and followers. The latterconstitute the vast majority;theystand in need of an authority which will make decisions forthem and to which theyforthe most part offer unqualifiedsubmission."12 an We must look carefullyat the historical and theoreticaljustificationfor thisexacerbation of the role of"leader"ofthe masses. In the case of Freud, as in that of Le Bon or Tarde, in thatof fascistideologues as in thatof the Bataille of the 1930s, it was based on the following appreciated observation--variously and exploited according to author, of course, but in the end always the same: modern man, so-called homo is democraticus, in realitya "man of the crowds,"a man of the "communal" masses, of "groups in fusion." And that anonymous transcenman, brutallyrevealed by the retreatof the great politico-religious dances, is no longer a subject: he is the true "Man withoutQualities," without personal identity, deeply panicked, de-individualized,suggestible,hypnotizable crowds."Thus only an ("mediatized,"as we would put it today) among "solitary
ourknowledge the of made,thatFreudhad started I[nternational] A[ssociation] P[sychoanalysis] on itspath tenyearspriorto thetime,in Group and Analysis the Psychology the of Ego,he became in interested the Churchand the Army,in the mechanisms whichan organicgroup through in whose clear partiality be justified the basic can participates the crowd,an exploration by of of discovery theidentification each individual's witha sharedideal image themirageof ego whichis supported thepersonality thechief. sensational of A made prior fascist to by discovery, obvious.Made aware earlier itsefects organizations' makingit patently of [emphasis mine]Freud wouldobviously havewondered aboutthefield openfor left dominance thefunction theboss of by or caid in anyorganization etc. that others: Freud's that," A remark in turn givesriseto several (1) "basicdiscovery" Group in is not are with Psychology thategos unitedin thesame identification the because he states, thecontrary, they on that because of ego's Ideal-Chief, mutually self-identify their sharedlove the"Object" for thatis setup "inplace of"their Ego Ideal. Lacan's "remark" supof a and a reinterpretation dictated imposes,in fact, reinterpretationFreud'sthesis probably by reflection thefascist on Freud's"sensational the plicit phenomenon. (2) discovery" "anticipates" fascist massorganizations Bataillewas to noteas earlyas 1933,cf. Oeuvres (as I, p. complktes, 356) confirms description "crowd a of such onlybecauseitbroadly psychology," as thatofGustaveLe fascist led weretoexploit Bon, which ideologues, byHitlerand Mussolini, deliberately R. A. (cf. Gustave BonandtheCrisis Mass Democracy theThird Le in Nye, TheOrigins Crowd of Psychology. of . abLondon, 1975,pp. 178-179). (3) "Made awareofitseffects. ." in 1921Freudfelt Republic, no the on and for solutely needto reorganize analytical community another goodreason: as Lacan himself notedin theearlier version histext of as an AnnextoEcrits, 487), (published model-p. Freud insisted much on his own function Chief-Father so as because he neverforan instant doubtedthebasic"inadequacies" his"band"ofdisciples. of The massesneed a leader-isn't that whatall thegreat "leaders" thiscentury of have constantly in from reiterated, publicor in private, Lenin to Mao bywayofMussolinior Tito? And is thisnotwhatLacan himself also sayingin is his way, whenhe heaps contempt thoseattending seminar signshis contributions on his or to Scilicet hisproper with namealone? In fact, wouldhave been doneeither Freudor by nothing by Lacan to deal withwhatthelatter called"theobscenity thesocial tie"and substitute it anof for "cleansedof any groupneeds"("L'Etourdit," Scilicet, Paris, 1973). in other, 4, 12. Freud,SE, XXII, p. 212.

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absolute Chief- "prestigious"and "charismatic"say Le Bon and Weber, "sovembody, reembody, in ereign" and "heterogenous"in Bataille's words--can other words, give substantial consistencyand subjective unityto, this magma as ofunanchored identitiesor imitations.In the textsof theoreticians in the histories inspired by them, the figureof Chief-Subjectthus emerges brutally,the what is perceived of as a radical de-subjectivization more so in that it wards off In this connection it is probably not enough to say, as one so and alienation. totalitarianisms have politically readily does today, that the twentieth-century realized the modern rationale and goal of the Subject in all its total ab-solution and immanence. It must be added thattheyhave had greatersuccess insofaras theyhave lucidly, cynicallydealt withthe de-liaison and dissolutionof the subthe jects dually implicitin such a goal of immanentization.Briefly, totalitarian Chief the more easily imposes the fictionor figureof his absolute subjectivity because he knows fullwell that it is a mythand thatwhat he has beforehim is a mass of nonsubjects. So, in thisconnection, it is no mere chance thattotalitariand "personality cults"to flouranisms have caused so many "new mythologies" ish, nor thatBataille and his friendsshould have dreamed, lucidlyand naively, and "acephalous" mythology. of opposing fascismwith an other "heterogeneous" Inasmuch as the masses have no proper identity, only a mythcan provide them with one by positing a fictionin which theirunity is embodied, depicted- in short: in which they auto-envisage or auto-representthemselves as Subject. because we know we are dealing with someis Henceforth,theSubject a myth, thing fictional,with a deus ex machina, but it is also a mythbecause in that fictionit is reembodied and massively reinstated. We findthis same totalitarianmythof the Subject in Group and Psychology, here too, on the faredge of an investigationinto the nonpresenceof the selfimplicit in the social being. For just as Freud, on behalf of social identifications, emphasizes the radical alteration of so-called "subjects" assembled in crowds, just as he emphasizes the original characterof such group psychology,so does he restore,reinstitute, the fullprimacy and principality of despite everything, an absolute Subject. I would thereforerecall that the investigationof Group concludes with an invocation of the "totally narcissistic"FatherPsychology and of thejealous "egoism"13 Chief-Hypnotist.Here, this theme of"narcissism" of the primal Father is stilldecisive, because it is quite obviouslyonly on condition that he be freeof ties to anyone (to any "object," as Freud says) that the Chief is able to propose himselfas a unique object to the admiring and awestrucklove of the masses-in short, to create communitywhere earlier there
13. Freud,SE, XVIII, p. 123: "He, at theverybeginning thehistory mankind, the of of was whomNietzsche from future. the Even to-day members a group 'superman' the of onlyexpected standin needoftheillusion thatthey equallyandjustly are lovedbytheir leader(Fiuhrer), the but leaderhimself need love no one else; he may be of a masterful nature,absolutely narcissistic, self-confident independent." and

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and suggestions. In had been nothingbut a chaos of reciprocal identification is locked onto this fascinatingfigureof a' Narcissus or otherwords, everything question of a Egocrat sprung fromnowhere-which makes moot the difficult or social tie anterior to the ego and makes room for a "scientific relationship that is at once the mythof the Subject's originand the mythof the founmyth" itself dation of a Politics. The Subject self-proclaims Chief, and the Chief therehimselfas Subject. upon self-engenders both in It goes withoutsaying thatthismythremains forus to interrogate, and because of itsodd renewal itsenigmaticresemblanceto the totalitarian myth in of the figureof the Subject. Yet is it really fitting, this case, to call it a mere I do not thinkso, and I put even greaterstresson thisbecause it is, after myth? In all, just such a denunciation of myththatpreoccupied me in Le sujetfreudien. that book, I tried to show that the very violence with which Freud posited a Subject as the originof Politics seemed to me to signal the failureofhis attempt at foundation, at instauratio. And, in a way, I revelled in demonstratingthat failure: I confinedmyselfto drawing attentionto Freud's inabilityto found the social tie- the relationshipwith others- otherthan by presupposingin mythic forma Subject founded in itselfand based upon itself.In short,I confinedmyselfto revealingthe innatelyunfounded,abyssal, nature of thisconstant,circular presuppositionof a Subject-Foundation. Yet mightnot thatveryabyss- the notion ofpolitics, abyss of relationship be the source of some non-"subjective" notion of the subject? Were we condemned, in accordance of a non-"political" to withthe deeply ambiguous gestureof our post-Nietzscheanmodernity, keep loss-ofwith thingslike lack-of-foundation, obliteration-of-subject, coming up And this "an-archy"of the masses, in extremis origin, collapse-of-principle? warded offby the Chief-Subjectmyth,did it enable us in extremis,as it were, to achieve another and more essential understandingof the archy itself,the bethe commandment? ginnings, For, in the last analysis, that is the formidable problem posed by the Freudian and, more generally,totalitarian Chief-Subjectmyth.Once its mythic characterhas been noted, we must stillunderstandwhence it derives its incredwe ible authority. Because the mythworks,whether like it or not: everywhere, the masses group themselvesaround a Chief or Party supposed to representthem; everywhere,they convulsively sacrificethemselves on the altar of his or its myth. And that mythfunctionsall the better,as we have seen, when it posits the radical lack of the very political subjectivityit creates: Whence, then, its awesome foundingpower? Whence does it derive its authority,since it is not fromsome subject? Since the subject- and this is the cynical lesson totalitarianism teaches us - is a myth?Today, we can no longer shirkthat question. And we can do so even less in that it is only throughthat question that we findthe means to resistthe henceforth global dominationof the can-- perhaps-of the subject." For, in the end, on behalf whatshould we rejecttotali"politics of tarianism?In the name of what notion of "subject"and "politics,"ifit can truly

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no longer be that of the Individual against the State, nor that of the Rights of the Human-Subject? the Freudian mythcan provide us with Perhaps, in spite of everything, the beginnings of an answer to that question. For we cannot, as I have done That political version hitherto, relyon the version supplied by Group Psychology. an anterior version, a of the myth is already reinterpreting, reelaborating, more properlyethical version, to which we must now return. We are familiar of with this mother-form the myth: it is the fable of the murder of the primal in and Taboo. And thisfable, ifwe examine it closely, as set forth Totem Father, another genesis forauthoritythan does Group envisages quite Psychology use (I in order to avoid the word power). For, in Totem and Taboo the primal authority that "Superman" Freud evoked authorityis not the Father-Chief-Hypnotist, afterNietzsche before calling him, in Moses, the "great man." It is the guiltbecause he is a dead Father. Therefore, we Father, and guilt-creating creating can already say-and herein lies the enigma-that such authorityis not the of authority any person, in any case not of any man, and even less thatof some absolute Narcissus. True, Freud is still speaking of a murder of a primal "Father," and in so doing he appears once again to be using the language of myth.It is forthisthat all of our disenchanted modernity,fromLivi-Strauss to Girard, has criticized him: presupposing the authorityof the Father ratherthan deducing it, Totem and Taboodoes no more than provide us witha new mythoforigins,a new myth of foundation.And yetthatmyth- which is a mytheven in its auto-representation as a myth- is also the mythof the originofthe mythof the Father (indeed, we can say of all myth). Freud is well aware that the dominating and jealous male of theDarwinian tribeis no Father, and thatis even why he feelstheneed, in his narrative,to have him murdered by his fellows:his power derived from and thus, alone, he stilldoes not hold any properlypaternal authority, strength to this logic of the natural state, he must be someday overthrown.It according thathis is thus after murder,after the theyhave killed and devoured theirtyrant, murdererssubmit to him, throughan enigmatic guilt and obedience that are The described as "retrospective" (nachtriiglich). "Father," in other words, only afterward,in the remorsefeltby those who, in like wise, become, for emerges "brothers"-and brothers the first because theyare guilty time in history, "sons." The "Father,"then, does not appear in this strangeFreudian mythotherthan as a myth- the mythof his own power and the power of his own myth."The dead," Freud writes,"became strongerthan the living had been."14 when viewed Now, this genesis of authorityis extraordinarily interesting fromthe angle we are now taking, to the degree that it describes the primal authorityas an "ethical,""moral" authority,and not as a political authority.
14. Freud,SE, XIII, p. 143. (Translation slightly modified.)

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What the members of the tribe submit to- and because of which they forma human community- is no power, because fraternal, community,an ultimately the wielder of that power is now dead and perfectly powerless. As Freud insistentlyemphasizes, it is only out of the guilt feeling- the feeling of moral lapse, or sin- that the terriblefigurethat is to become the omnipotentFather, and later the God or the Leader, emerges. As he says in Civilization and Its is not social anxiety (sozialeAngst),the commonplace Discontents, guilt feeling fearof being punished by some externalpower or censor. It is moral anxiety(or anxiety of conscience: Gewissenangst) vis-h-vis an "inner" authority as "imas it is "categorical."It is thisstrangemoral authority- even stranger, perative" forthat matter,because the subject submits to it by himself,autonomouslythatFreud has earlierdescribedas the"voice of conscience"(Stimme Gewissens) des and that he was later, after Totemand Taboo, to dub the "superego" or "ego ideal." And it is in place ofthat ego ideal that he will set up the Fiihrer Group of Psychology, finally indicating that the essence of the community is "ethical" beforebeing "political." What creates the communityis not principallythe fusional and loving participation of a collective Super-Subject or "Superman," but the always singular interpellation a Super-ego of that is strictly, rigorously, no one. For I repeat: the primal authority ethical authority belongs to no one, and above all not to the Father-Chief-Narcissus, whose mythwill emerge only afterward. Far from his murderers'feeling guilty because of some anteriorally known and established law (which brings us back to the status of soziale Angst), theybecome aware of the law of the Father-inexplicably, out ofterrorthrough the sense of sin (through Gewissenangst): "They thus created," writes the paradox, "outoftheir Freud, carefully underscoring filial sense guiltthe two of fundamental taboos of totemism."15! Freud does not, then, say thatthe murderers feel anxietyat having transgressedagainst taboos laid down by the Father. He says- and this is even odder- that the Father's taboos, and, thus, human society, all spring fromanxiety- about what? Nothing; nobody. In a wholly way, it is when the powerfulmale is dead and no longer present disconcerting to forbidanythingthat the alterityof duty and the debt of guilt, all the more unbearable, emerges. The Father emerges fromhis own death, the law fromits own absence-literally ex nihilo. That, as a matterof fact,is why the Freudian mythis not, despite all appearances, a "twentieth-century myth,"a new myth the nostalgicallyreinstating lost transcendencyof myth(of the Father, of God, of the Chief). Freud does not deplore the death of the Father, nor does he attempt to alleviate the resultant"discontentof civilization." On the contrary, of rootingcivilizationin the "discontent" an a prioriguiltanteriorto any law and Name of the Father, he offers the mythof the death myth- and of its us of any
15. Ibid., p. 143.

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as tirelessresurrection well. For, finally,if the Father is dead (if his power is purely mythic),how is it that his murdererssubmit to him? Or, rather(forwe are talkingabout ourselves, about the "killersof God"), ifGod is dead, how is it that we are so eager to reinstatehim at the center and base of our societies, or socialist mankind lyingprostratebeforethe Stalinist"LittleFather,"the Volk race bound togetherin a fasces behind its Fiihrer? Because we feelguiltyforhaving killedhim: thatis mythicFreud's--still response. The question, however, merelybounces back: why do we feelguilty ifno Father is any longer there,ifhe never was there,to punish us? That is the engima of the myth- both of Freudian myth and of the mythicpower it describes. To solve it, is it enough to evoke once again the love forthe Father? Freud in factwritesthatthe murderers"hated theirfather,who presentedsuch a formidableobstacle to theircraving forpower [Machtbedisrfnis] theirsexand ual drives; but theyloved and admired him too. Aftertheyhad got rid of him, theirwish to identify had satisfiedtheir hatred and had put into effect themwhich had all this time been pushed under was selves with him, the affection 6 felt."1 Yet such "love" forthe Father, as is all too obvious, bound to make itself is also a part of the myth. For it is only after theyhave eliminated the detested rival and when they are impelled by remorse that his murdererscome to love him as a Father and to be united in that love. In order to love him, theythus had to begin by killinghim. Society, a communityoflove, restson a crime,and on the remorse forcrime committed. obedience" So, should we not seek the key to filial-fraternal "retrospective not so much in "love" per se as in the highlyambivalent, hate-filled and devouring side of its nature? The membersof the tribe,as the mythmakes clear, killed and devoured male of whom theywerejealous. Why this,ifthe only goal was the to get rid of the retainerof exclusive rightsover the females of the flock?The him." That mythspells it out forus: because his murderers"loved and admired "love"was admiring,identifying, and it thus led inevitablyto envious, singular of the cannibalisticincorporation the model. As the narrativehas it: "The violent primal fatherhad doubtless been the feared and envied model of each one of the company of brothers:and in the act of devouring him they accomplished with him, and each one of them acquired a portion of his their identification strength.""17
16. Freud,SE, XIII, p. 143, cf. also, SE, XXI, p. 132: "This remorse was theresult the of ambivalence feeling of towardthe father. His sons hatedhim,but theylovedhim, primordial too. After their hatred had been satisfied their ofaggression, act their love came tothefore in by their remorse thedeed . . . Now, I think can at lastgrasptwothings for we the perfectly clearly: and thefatalinevitability thesenseof guilt." of partplayedby love in theoriginofconscience 17. Freud,SE, XIII, p. 142. See also SE, XXIII, p. 82: "they onlyfeared not and hatedtheir father also honoured himas a model,and. . . each ofthem but wished takehisplacein reality. to We can . . . understand cannibalistic as an attempt ensureidentification himby the act to with a incorporating piece ofhim."

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"Model," "identification," "devouring,""appropriating,"all that is clear. Here the mythis not tellingus about a love foran object, but about an indissolubly narcissisticand identificatory passion: it is to be the Father- to be the Subject-that the members of the horde kill and devour him. Not (or only secondarily) to havethe women of the flock. Freud expresses it clearly when he with the Father": the speaks of the "need forpower" and the "desire to identify murder is committed,not to gain possession of an object of desire or pleasure, but to acquire an identity.In this light, then, the murder of the Father is far less a mere animal strugglethan it is the Freudian version of Hegel's "struggle forpure prestige."If desire leads to murder and devouring, it is because it is a desire to take unto oneself the other's being, a desire to assimilate his power in (Macht),his strength (Stiirke), short,his mastery:his autonomy as Narcissus. is in the other, and it is forthat reason that I can become "me," an My being is ego, only by devouring him- that what the Freudian mythis tellingus, and in the end much less mythically than mightseem. For what it treatsof, by settingit in the mythicoriginsof the human community,is the primal relationship with others-"primal" because it is the relationshipof no ego to no other, no subject to no object. And thus, it is a relationship without relationship to another, an absolved tie: I am born, I, the ego,in assimilatingthe other,in dehim. Everything therefore vouringhim, in incorporating begins, in the history of so-called "individuals" as well as in that of society, with a murderous and blind identification, more so in that no ego is yet presentto see or conceive the anythingat all, and the "envied"model it assimilatesis immediatelyeradicated, eaten, swallowed up: "I am the breast,""I am the Father"- i.e., noone.In other withoutsubject- and here the words, everything begins with an identification Freudian myth corresponds exactly with the status of panicked anarchical, acephalic masses without a Chief. The Father (but not a father,nor even a brother,but merelya counterpart,a fellowbeing) has been killed and thereis therefore subject at the foundationof the social tie, neitherloving subjects no nor beloved Subject. Yet it is at thisjuncture that the mythof the Subject arises. The phantom of Father-Subjectattacksthe guiltyconscience of the sons, who then attemptto atone for their sin throughtheir love and submission. From where does this of ghost,then, derive its vain, emptypower? From thefailure the devouring act of identification. Freud puts it in a footnote,and it is ultimatelyto be the only obedience" he vouchsafes: "This fresh explanation of the son's "retrospective emotional attitudemust also have been assisted by the factthatthe deed cannot have given complete satisfaction those who did it. From one point of view it to had been done in vain. Not one of the sons had in factbeen able to put his original effect. takinghis father's And, as we know, failureis wish--of place--into farmore propitiousfora moral reaction than satisfaction."18 Thus, none of the
18. Freud,SE, XIII, p. 143.

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sons was able to become Subject and Chief by appropriating to himselfthe identityand glorious being of the Other. And what is, finally,the indomitable act alteritythat brings about the failure of the identificatory of violence, the dialectical assimilation of the other? To returnto and reverse Hegel's term,it can be nothingother than the "absolute Master," death. Death or the dead: der Tote,says Freud. In empirical realitythereis nothingto preventone ofthe tribefromtaking in his turn the place of the dominant male by eliminatinghis competitors(indeed, Freud conceives of this solution in other versions of the myth19).So it and not at all empirical, withwhich we are must be somethingquite different, dealing here: namely the unoccupiable place of the dead, death being the absoThe myth,to be sure, does not state it so clearly,but lute limitof identification. it is the only way we can understand the retrospective power of death. Der Tote who is resurrectedand lives on eternallyin the guiltymemoryof his sons representsdeath, represents for them their own unrepresentable death. We must in fact imagine, at the myth'sextremity, that the murderers,having devoured the otherin order to appropriatehis being, suddenlyfindthemselvesfaced with "themselves"- in other words, with no one. The other was dead, and therefore were themselves dead. The identifying incorporationbroughtthem- brutally, they to face with what is par excellence unassimilable: theirown dizzyingly--face death, theirown being-dead, withwhat escapes all appropriation. That is why "the dead became strongerthan the livinghad been" and so why the "sense of guilt" is born of the anxious apprehension of death "beside the dead body of someone [we] loved," as Freud says in "Thoughts forthe Times on War and Death."20 "This dead man," his dazed murderersmust have told themselves, "this dead man is me- and yet he is infinitely other, since I cannot envisage
in 19. Firstand foremost Totem Taboo,in whichFreud,as though and frightened his own by murder followed a fratricidal Freudbackto by paradox,has thefather's struggle-which brings him hispointofdeparture thusconstrains to fallbackon thehypothesis and (moreclassicand the obedience" intended avoid)ofa "socialcontract" one which hypothesis "retrospective of the was to See after parricide the amongtherivalbrothers. also SE, XXIII, p. 82: "Itmustbe supposedthat which brothers the a considerable timeelapsedduring with one another their for father's disputed himself alone."Moses Monotheism which each ofthemwantedfor and describes same the heritage, to the scenario, brothers struggling takethefather's place. 20. Freud, SE, XIV, pp. 294-295: "Whatcame intoexistence beside the dead bodyof the lovedone was notonlythedoctrine thesoul,thebelief immortality a powerful of in and sourceof man'ssenseofguilt,but also theearliest ethicalcommandments. first mostimportant The and conscience 'Thou shaltnotkill.'It was acquiredin relamade by theawakening was prohibition tionto dead people who wereloved, as a reaction of againstthesatisfaction thehatredhidden behind the grieffor them."The important thingin arousingthe moral conscienceis not, that nor been murdered. The only therefore, thecorpsebe thatofa father, thatit have actually man"be confronted a dead is with with he in the important thing that"primal person whom identifies ambivalent "love."For "then" hissorrow willexperience fact in modeofdevouring he the that he, the of each ofthepertoo,can also die, and all hisbeingrevolts against recognition thatfact;isn't
sons dear to him a part ofhis well-beloved ego?

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myselfdead.21 He is myself,and all the more other. And this All-Other, this All-Mightywho has escaped my power, how now can I appease His wrath?" I have just used the language of the myth,followingFreud's attemptto to representthe unrepresentable,attemptingmyself envisage this other that is me by settingit, once more, before myself.Of course, it is a myth,but the myth is inevitable, inescapable. And that, precisely, is its power: we cannot (but) representthe unrepresentable,we cannot (but) present the unpresentable. That is why, in attemptingto representthis deep withdrawalof the subject, Freud could only write a new myth- powerful,like all myths,and one that also created a group, a community.Yet this myth- the mythof the death is no longerwhollya myth. ofmyth,the mythof the inevitablepower of myth-A mythof the mythicemergenceof the Subject, it is no longer whollythe myth of the Subject, and it is forthat reason, lucidly confronting vast power of the the totalitarianmyth,that it may perhaps enable us to elude it. For, in the end, what is it telling us? First, that we are submittingto nothingbut ourselves- in that, of course, it is only repeating the totalitarian the mythof Subject: State, Law, the Chief, the Fiihrer, Other in generalare Me, "His Majesty the Ego." And it is also quite true that Freud always Me, always himselfbelieved in this myth to a considerable degree, that he himselfsuccumbed to its power. Yet by adding that this all-powerful ego is "thedead," our death, he also told us somethingquite different, somethingalmost impossible forcedto utterin mythicterms:"I am death,""I to say and thathe was therefore I am the other."In short:"I am not myself, am not subject." What the members of the murderous horde submit to, what they assemble before, what unites no them in a community,is nothing- Subject, no Father, no Chief- otherthan theirproper-improper theirproper-improper finitude,theirpropermortality, improperpowerlessness to be Absolute Subjects, "total Narcissus." obedience" of which And, finally,that is why the enigmatic"retrospective Freud speaks is an ethical respectbeforeit is a political submission, respectfor othersbeforebeing submission to oneself. It is obedience to what in the subject is beyond the subject, to what in me is above me, to the ego's superego. Or, and it to returnto the Freudian myth,adding nothing, is obedience to what withdraws from the body social in its very incorporation and thereby- and only thereby- creates a "body politic"or a "mysticalbody": "This is my body. Behold here my death. Here behold your own."

21. Ibid.,p. 294: "Man can no longer becausehe had tastedit in his keep deathat a distance to himself as it, he pain aboutthedead; buthe was unwilling acknowledge for couldnotconceive dead."