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UMBR(a)
1998
From "Passionate Attachments" to Dis-IdentiIication
By Slavoj Zizek
I want to address the problem oI identiIication by conIronting the
predominant deconstructionist doxa according to which the main
problem with Lacanian theory - which allegedly also limits its political
use - is that Lacan elevates the symbolic into a kind oI transcendental
position oI a Iixed normative order exempted Irom the transIormative
process oI historical practice. According to this critique, the symbolic
Iixes in advance the constraints oI compulsory heterosexuality and
reduces all resistance to it to imaginary misrecognition. And iI one does
eIIectively break up the chains oI the symbolic order, one is expelled into
the void oI psychosis. Since the main proponent oI this criticism is Judith
Butler, let me Iocus on her latest book, 7KH3V\FKLF/LIHRI3RZHU.|1|
1
Butler's, as well as Lacan's, starting point is the old LeItist one -- how is
it possible not only to resist eIIectively, but also to undermine and/or
displace the existing socio-symbolic network - the Lacanian "big Other"
- which predetermines the only space within which the subject can exist.
SigniIicantly, Butler identiIies "subject" with the symbolic position
occupied within this space, while she reserves the term "psyche" Ior the
larger unity encompassing that in the individual which resists being
included in the symbolic space.|2| Butler, oI course, is well aware that
the site oI this resistance cannot be simply and directly identiIied as the
unconscious; the existing order oI Power is also supported by
unconscious "passionate attachments," attachments publicly non-
acknowledged by the subject:
II the unconscious escapes Irom a given normative injunction, to what
other injunction does it Iorm an attachment? What makes us think that
the unconscious is any less structured by the power relations that
pervade cultural signiIiers than is the language oI the subject? II we
Iind an attachment to subjection at the level oI the unconscious, what
kind oI resistance is to be wrought Irom that? (88).
The exemplary case oI the unconscious "passionate attachments" which
sustain Power is precisely the inherent reIlective eroticization oI the
regulatory power-mechanisms and procedures themselves. In the
perIormance oI an obsessional ritual, one designated to keep at bay the
illicit temptation, the ritual itselI becomes the source oI libidinal
satisIaction. It is thus the "reIlexivity" involved in the relationship
between regulatory power and sexuality, the way the repressive
regulatory procedures themselves get libidinally invested, that Iunctions
as a source oI libidinal satisIaction. And it is this radical masochistic
reIlective turn which remains unaccounted Ior in the standard notion oI
the "internalization" oI social norms into psychic prohibitions. The
second problem with the quick identiIication oI the unconscious as the
8]11]12 SIavoj ZIzek-8IbIIography]From "PassIonate Attachments" to DIs-dentIIIcatIon]Lacan Dot Com
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site oI resistance is that, even iI we concede that the unconscious is the
site oI resistance which Iorever prevents the smooth Iunctioning oI
power mechanisms, that interpellation - the subject's recognition in his or
her allotted symbolic place - is always ultimately incomplete, Iailed.
"Does such resistance do anything," asks Butler, "to alter or expand the
dominant injunctions or interpellations oI subject Iormation?" (88). In
short, she concludes that "this resistance establishes the incomplete
character oI any eIIort to produce a subject by disciplinary means, but it
remains unable to rearticulate the dominant terms oI productive power"
(89).
Therein resides the kernel oI Butler's criticism oI Lacan. According to
her, Lacan reduces resistance to the imaginary misrecognition oI the
symbolic structure. Such a resistance, although it thwarts the Iull
symbolic realization, nonetheless depends on the symbolic order and
asserts it in its very opposition, unable to rearticulate its terms - "For the
Lacanian, then, the imaginary signiIies the impossibility oI the discursive
- that is, symbolic - constitution oI identity" (96-97). Along these lines,
she even identiIies the Lacanian unconscious itselI as imaginary, as "that
which thwarts any eIIort oI the symbolic to constitute sexed identity
coherently and Iully, an unconscious indicated by the slips and gaps that
characterize the workings oI the imaginary in language" (97).|3| Against
this background, it is then possible to claim that, in Lacan, "psychic
resistance presumes the continuation oI the law in its anterior, symbolic
Iorm and, in that sense, contributes to its status quo. In such a view,
resistance appears doomed to perpetual deIeat" (98).
The Iirst thing to take note oI here is that Butler seems to conIlate two
radically opposed uses oI the term "resistance." One is the socio-critical
use - resistance to power, Ior instance - and the other the clinical use
operative in psychoanalysis - the patient's resistance to acknowledge the
unconscious truth oI his symptoms, the meaning oI his dreams, and so
on. When Lacan determines resistance as "imaginary," he has thereby in
mind the misrecognition oI the symbolic network which determines us.
On the other hand, Ior Lacan, radical rearticulation oI the predominant
symbolic order is altogether possible. This is what his notion oI point de
capiton - the "quilting point" or the master-signiIier - is about. When a
new point de capiton emerges, the socio-symbolic Iield is not only
displaced, its very structuring principle changes. Here, one is thus
tempted to turn around the opposition between Lacan and Foucault as
elaborated by Butler. It is Foucault who insists on the immanence oI the
entire symbolic Iield by means oI an act proper, a passage through
"symbolic death." In short, it is Lacan who allows us to conceptualize
the distinction between imaginary resistance -- Ialse transgression which
reasserts the symbolic status quo and even serves as a positive condition
oI its Iunctioning - and the eIIective symbolic rearticulation via the
intervention oI the real oI an act.
Only at this level, assuming that we take into account the Lacanian
notions oI point de capiton and the act as real, does a meaningIul
dialogue with Butler become possible. Butler's matrix oI social existence
as well as Lacan's is that oI a Iorced choice. In order to exist at all within
the socio-symbolic space, one has to accept the Iundamental alienation,
the deIinition oI one's existence in the terms oI the "big Other." As she is
8]11]12 SIavoj ZIzek-8IbIIography]From "PassIonate Attachments" to DIs-dentIIIcatIon]Lacan Dot Com
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quick to add, however, this should not constrain us to - what she
perceives as - the Lacanian view according to which the symbolic order
is a given which can only be eIIectively transgressed iI the subject pays
the price oI psychic exclusion. So on the one hand we have the Ialse
imaginary resistance to the symbolic norm, and on the other, the
psychotic breakdown, with the only "realistic option" being Iull
acceptance oI alienation in the symbolic order - the goal oI the
psychoanalytic treatment. Butler opposes to this Lacanian Iixity oI the
symbolic the Hegelian dialectic oI presupposing and positing. Not only
is the symbolic order always-already presupposed as the sole milieu oI
the subject's social existence, but this order itselI exists and is
reproduced, only insoIar as subjects recognize themselves in it and, via
repeated perIormative gestures, again and again assume their places in it.
This, oI course, opens up the possibility oI changing the symbolic
contours oI our socio-symbolic existence by way oI its parodically
displaced perIormative enactings. Therein resides the thrust oI Butler's
anti-Kantianism. She rejects the Lacanian symbolic a priori as a new
version oI the transcendental Iramework which Iixes the coordinates oI
our existence in advance, leaving no space Ior the retroactive
displacement oI these presupposed conditions. So when in a key passage
Butler asks the question:
What would it mean Ior the subject to desire something other than its
continued 'social existence'? II such an existence cannot be undone
without Ialling into some kind oI death, can existence nevertheless be
risked, death courted or pursued, in order to expose and open to
transIormation the hold oI social power on the conditions oI liIe's
persistence? The subject is compelled to repeat the norms by which it
is produced, but the repetition establishes a domain oI risk, Ior iI one
Iails to reinstate the norm "in the right way," one becomes subject to
Iurther sanction, one Ieels the prevailing conditions oI existence
threatened. And yet, without a repetition that risks liIe - in its current
organization - how might we begin to imagine the contingency oI that
organization, and perIormatively reconIigure the contours oI the
conditions oI liIe? (28-29).
The Lacanian answer to this is clear - "to desire something other than its
continued 'social existence'" and thus to Iall "into some kind oI death,"
that is, to risk a gesture by means oI which death is "courted or pursued,"
points precisely towards the way Lacan reconceptualized the Freudian
death-drive as the elementary Iorm oI the ethical act. Note that the act,
insoIar as it is irreducible to a "speech act," relies Ior its perIormative
power on the preestablished set oI symbolic rules and/or norms.
Is this not the whole point oI Lacan's reading oI Antigone? Antigone
eIIectively puts at risk her entire social existence, deIying the socio-
symbolic power oI the city embodied in the rule oI Creon, thereby
"Ialling into some kind oI death" - i.e., sustaining symbolic death, the
exclusion Irom the socio-symbolic space. For Lacan, there is no ethical
act proper without taking the risk oI such a momentary "suspension oI
the big Other," oI the socio-symbolic network which guarantees the
subject's identity; an authentic act occurs only when a subject risks a
gesture which is no longer "covered up" by the big Other. For that
reason, Lacan pursues all possible versions oI this entering the domain
"between the two deaths," not only citing Antigone aIter her expulsion,
but also Oedipus at Colonus, King Lear, Poe's Mr. Valdemar, and so on.
8]11]12 SIavoj ZIzek-8IbIIography]From "PassIonate Attachments" to DIs-dentIIIcatIon]Lacan Dot Com
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Up to Sygne Irom Claudel's CouIontaine-trilogy, their common
predicament is that they all Iound themselves in this domain oI the
undead, "beyond death and liIe," in which the causality oI the symbolic
Iate is suspended. Butler, in the above-quoted passage, too quickly
conIlates this act in its radical dimension with the perIormative
reconIiguration oI one's symbolic condition via its repetitive
displacements. The two are not the same. In other words, one should
maintain the crucial distinction between mere "perIormative
reconIiguration," a subversive displacement which remains within the
hegemonic Iield and, as it were, Iights against it an internal guerilla battle
oI turning against the hegemonic Iield its own terms, and the much more
radical act oI a thorough reconIiguration oI the entire Iield which
redeIines the very conditions oI socially sustained perIormativity - in
Foucault's terms, the passage Irom one episteme to another.
2
Is it possible to undermine also the most Iundamental level oI subjection,
what Butler calls "passionate attachments"? The Lacanian name Ior the
primordial passionate attachments on which the very consistency oI the
subject's being hinges is, oI course, Iundamental Iantasy. The
"attachment to subjectivation" constitutive oI the subject is thus none
other than the primordial "masochist" scene in which the subject
"makes/sees himselI suIIer," that is, assumes la doleur d' exister and thus
provides the minimum oI support to his being - like Freud's primordially
repressed middle term "Father is beating me" in the essay "A Child is
Being Beaten." This Iundamental Iantasy is thoroughly "inter-passive."
In it, a scene oI passive suIIering, or subjection, is staged which
simultaneously sustains and threatens the subject's being - only insoIar,
that is, as being remains Ioreclosed, primordially repressed. From this
perspective, a new approach opens up to the recent artistic practices oI
sado-masochistic perIormance. In such practices, isn't this very
Ioreclosure ultimately undone? In other words, what iI the open
assuming/staging oI the Iantasmatic scene oI primordial "passionate
attachment" is Iar more subversive than the dialectic rearticulation and/or
displacement oI this scene?
The diIIerence between Butler and Lacan is that Ior Butler primordial
repression is the Ioreclosure oI the primordial "passionate attachment,"
while Ior Lacan, the Iundamental Iantasy, the stuII oI which "primordial
attachments" are made, is already a Iiller, a Iormation which covers up a
certain gap or void. Thus it is only here, at this very point where the
diIIerence between Butler and Lacan is almost imperceptible, that we
encounter the ultimate gap that separates Butler Irom Lacan. Butler again
interprets these "primordial attachments" as the subject's presuppositions
in a proto-Hegelian meaning oI the term, and thereIore counts on the
subject's ability dialectically to rearticulate these presuppositions oI his or
her being, to reconIigure and displace them. The subject's identity "will
remain always and Iorever rooted in its injury as long as it remains an
identity, but it does imply that the possibilities oI resigniIication will
rework and unsettle the passionate attachment to subjection without
which subject Iormation - and re-Iormation - cannot succeed" (105). For
example, subjects are conIronted with a Iorced choice in which rejecting
an injurious interpellation amounts to not existing at all; under the threat
8]11]12 SIavoj ZIzek-8IbIIography]From "PassIonate Attachments" to DIs-dentIIIcatIon]Lacan Dot Com
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oI non-existence, they are, as it were, emotionally blackmailed into
identiIying with the imposed symbolic identity, "nigger," "bitch," etc.
Since symbolic identity retains its hold only by its incessant repetitive re-
enacting, however, it is possible Ior the subject to displace this identity,
to recontextualize it, to make it work Ior other purposes, to turn it against
its hegemonic mode oI Iunctioning.
What Lacan does here is to introduce a distinction between the two terms
which are identiIied in Butler, the Iundamental Iantasy which serves as
the ultimate support oI the subject's being, and the symbolic
identiIication which is already a symbolic response to the trauma oI the
Iantasmatic "passionate attachment." The symbolic identity we assume in
a Iorced choice when we recognize ourselves in ideological
interpellation relies on the disavowal oI the Iantasmatic "passionate
attachment" which serves as its ultimate support.|4| This leads to a
Iurther distinction between symbolic rearticulations and variations on the
Iundamental Iantasy - like the variations on "Father is beating me" -
which do not eIIectively undermine its hold, that is, between this
dialecticization and the possible "traversing" the very Iundamental
Iantasy. The ultimate aim oI the psychoanalytic process is precisely Ior
the subject to undo the ultimate "passionate attachment" which
guarantees the consistency oI his or her being, and thus to undergo what
Lacan calls the "subjective destitution." At its most Iundamental level,
the primordial "passionate attachment" to the scene oI Iundamental
Iantasy is not "dialecticizable."
An example oI the reconIiguration oI Iantasy would be Clint Eastwood's
Dirty Harry series. In the Iirst Iilm, the masochist Iantasy in all its
ambiguity is almost directly acknowledged, while in the Iollowing
installments, it looks as iI Eastwood selI-consciously accepted the
politically correct criticism and displaced the Iantasy to give to the story a
more acceptable "progressive" Ilavor. In all these reconIigurations,
however, the same Iundamental Iantasy remains operative. With all
respect Ior the political eIIiciency oI such reconIigurations, they do not
really touch the hard Iantasmatic kernel - they even sustain it. And in
contrast to Butler, Lacan's wager is that even and also in politics, it is
possible to accomplish a more radical gesture oI "traversing" the very
Iundamental Iantasy. Only such gestures which disturb this Iantasmatic
kernel are authentic acts.
Here, one should look to the problematic oI the original HilIlosigkeit
('helplessness,' 'distress') oI small inIants. The Iirst Ieature to be noted is
that this "distress" covers two interconnected, but nonetheless diIIerent,
levels -- Iirst a purely organic helplessness, the inability oI the small child
to survive, to satisIy his or her most elementary needs, without the
parents' help, and second the traumatic perplexion when the child is
thrown into the position oI a helpless witness oI sexual interplay among
the parents, other adults, or between adults and him- or herselI. The child
is helpless, without "cognitive mapping," when conIronted with the
enigma oI the Other's MRXLVVDQFH, unable to symbolize the mysterious
sexual gestures and innuendoes he or she is witnessing. Crucial Ior
"becoming-human" is the overlapping oI the two levels, the implicit
"sexualization" oI the way a parent satisIies a child's bodily needs - say,
when the mother Ieeds the child by excessively caressing him, and the
8]11]12 SIavoj ZIzek-8IbIIography]From "PassIonate Attachments" to DIs-dentIIIcatIon]Lacan Dot Com
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child detects in this excess the mystery oI sexual fouissance.
So, back to Butler - the crucial question concerns the philosophical status
oI this original and constitutive Hilflosigkeit. Is this Hilflosigkeit not
another name Ior the gap oI the primordial dis-attachment which triggers
the need Ior the Iantasmatic primordial "passionate attachment"? In other
words, what iI we turn around the perspective and conceive oI the
obstacle which prevents the inIans Iully to Iit into its environs - this
original "out-oI-joint" state - in its positive aspect, as another name Ior
the very abyss oI Ireedom, Ior that gesture oI "disconnecting" that
liberates a subject Irom its direct immersion into its environs? Or, to put it
in yet another way - true, the subject is as it were "blackmailed" into
passively submitting to some Iorm oI the primordial "passionate
attachment," since, outside oI it, he simply does not exist. This non-
existence is not directly the absence oI existence, however, but a certain
gap or void in the order oI being which "is" the subject itselI. The need
Ior "passionate attachment" to provide a minimum oI being implies that
the subject qua "abstract negativity," qua the primordial gesture oI dis-
attachment Irom its environs, is already here. Fantasy is thus a deIense-
Iormation against the primordial abyss iI dis-attachment that "is" the
subject itselI. At this precise point, then, Butler should be supplemented -
the emergence oI the subject and subjection in the sense oI the
"passionate attachment," i.e. submission to some Iigure oI the Other, are
not strictly equivalent, since, Ior the "passionate attachment" to take
place, the gap which "is" the subject must already be here. Only iI this
gap is already here, can we account Ior how it is possible Ior the subject
to escape the hold oI the Iundamental Iantasy.|5|
3
So what is a proper act? Jacques-Alain Miller |6| proposes as the
deIinition oI "a true woman" a certain radical act - the act oI taking Irom
man, her partner, oI obliterating, destroying even, that which is "in him
more than himselI," that which "means everything to him" and to which
he holds more than his own liIe, the precious agalma round which his
liIe turns. The exemplary Iigure oI such an act in literature is that oI
Medea who, upon learning that Jason, her husband, plans to abandon her
Ior a younger woman, kills their two young children, her husband's most
precious possessions. It is in this horrible act oI destroying that which
matters most to her husband that she acts as une vraie Iemme, as Lacan
put it.|7|
Would it not be possible, along these lines, also to interpret the unique
Iigure oI the femme fatale in the new noir oI the 90s, as exempliIied by
Linda Fiorentino in John Dahl's The Last Seduction? In contrast to the
classic noir femme fatale oI the 40s, who remains an elusive spectral
presence, the new femme fatale is characterized by direct, outspoken
sexual aggressivity, verbal and physical, by direct selI-commodiIication
and selI-manipulation. She has the "mind oI a pimp in the body oI a
whore." Two dialogues are here indicative - the classic exchange oI
double entendres about a "speed limit" which Iinishes the Iirst encounter
oI Barbara Stanwyck and Fred McMurray in Billy Wilder's Double
Indemnitv, and the Iirst encounter oI Linda Fiorentino with her partner in
The Last Seduction. In the latter, Fiorentino directly opens up his Ily,
8]11]12 SIavoj ZIzek-8IbIIography]From "PassIonate Attachments" to DIs-dentIIIcatIon]Lacan Dot Com
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reaches into it and inspects his merchandise beIore accepting him as a
lover: "I never buy anything sight unseen," she says, and later rejects any
"warm human contact" with him.|8| How does this brutal "selI-
commodiIication," this reduction oI herselI and her male partner to an
object to be satisIied and exploited, aIIect the allegedly "subversive"
status oI the femme fatale with regard to the paternal Law oI speech?
According to standard Ieminist cinema theory, in the classical noir, the
femme fatale is punished at the level oI the explicit narrative line. She is
destroyed Ior being assertive and undermining the male patriarchal
dominance and Ior presenting a threat to it. Although she is destroyed or
domesticated, her image survives her physical destruction as the element
which eIIectively dominates the scene. The subversive character oI the
noir Iilms is exhibited in the way the texture oI the Iilm belies and
subverts its explicit narrative line. In contrast to this classic noir, the neo-
noir oI the 80s and 90s, Irom Kasdan's Bodv Heat to The Last Seduction,
at the level oI explicit narrative, openly allows the femme fatale to
triumph, to reduce her partner to a sucker condemned to death - she
survives rich and alone over his dead body. She does not survive as a
spectral "undead" threat which libidinally dominates the scene even aIter
her physical and social destruction. She triumphs directly, in social
reality itselI. How does this aIIect the subversive edge oI the femme
fatale Iigure? Does the Iact that her triumph is real not undermine her
much stronger spectral/Iantasmatic triumph, so that, instead oI a spectral
all-powerIul threat, indestructible in her very physical destruction, she
turns out to be just a vulgar, cold, manipulative "bitch" deprived oI any
aura?
Perhaps what one should do here is change the terms oI the debate by,
Iirst, pointing out that, Iar Irom being simply a threat to the male
patriarchal identity, the classic femme fatale Iunctions as the "inherent
transgression" oI the patriarchal symbolic universe, as the male
masochist-paranoiac Iantasy oI the exploitative and sexually insatiable
woman who simultaneously dominates us and enjoys in her suIIering,
provoking us violently to take her and to abuse her.|9| The threat oI the
femme fatale is thus a Ialse one. It is eIIectively a Iantasmatic support oI
patriarchal domination, the Iigure oI the enemy engendered by the
patriarchal system itselI. In Judith Butler's terms, femme fatale is the
Iundamental disavowed "passionate attachment" oI the modern male
subject, a Iantasmatic Iormation which is needed, but cannot be openly
assumed, so that it can only be evoked on the condition that, at the level
oI the explicit narrative line - standing Ior the public socio-symbolic
sphere - she is punished and the order oI male domination is reasserted.
Or, to put it in Foucauldian terms, in the same way that the discourse on
sexuality creates sex as the mysterious, impenetrable entity to be
conquered, the patriarchal erotic discourse creates the femme fatale as the
inherent threat against which the male identity should assert itselI. And
the neo-noir's achievement is to bring to light this underlying Iantasy: the
new femme fatale who Iully accepts the male game oI manipulation, and
as it were beats him at his own game, is much more eIIective in
threatening the paternal Law than the classic spectral femme fatale.
One can argue, oI course, that this new femme fatale is no less
hallucinatory, that her direct approach to a man is no less the realization
8]11]12 SIavoj ZIzek-8IbIIography]From "PassIonate Attachments" to DIs-dentIIIcatIon]Lacan Dot Com
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oI a (masochist) male Iantasy; what one should not Iorget, however, is
that the new femme fatale subverts the male Iantasy precisely by way oI
directly and brutally realizing it, acting it out in "real liIe." It is thus not
only that she realizes the male hallucination; she is Iully aware that men
hallucinate about such a direct approach, and that directly giving them
what they hallucinate about is the most eIIective way to undermine their
domination. In other words, what we have in the above-described scene
Irom The Last Seduction is the exact Ieminine counterpart to the scene
Irom Lynch's Wild at Heart in which Wilem DeIoe verbally abuses
Laura Dern, Iorcing her to utter the words "Fuck me!" And when she
Iinally does respond, i.e. when her Iantasy is aroused, he treats this oIIer
as an authentic Iree oIIer and politely rejects it - "No, thanks, I've got to
go, but maybe some other time..." In both scenes, the subject is
humiliated when his or her Iantasy is brutally externalized.|10| In short,
Linda Fiorentino acts here as a true sadist, not only on account oI her
reduction oI her partner to the bearer oI partial objects which provide
pleasure - thereby depriving the sexual act oI its "human and emotional
warmth" and transIorming it into a cold physiological exercise -- but also
because oI the cruel manipulation oI the other's Iantasy which is directly
acted out and thus thwarted in its eIIiciency as the support oI desire.
Is this gesture oI intentionally and brutally dropping the spectral aura oI
the traditional femme fatale not another version oI the act oI une vraie
Iemme? Is not the object which is to her partner "more than himselI," the
treasure around which his liIe turns, the femme fatale herselI? By
brutally destroying the spectral aura oI "Ieminine mystery," by acting as
a cold manipulating subject interested only in raw sex, reducing her
partner to a partial object, the appendix to - and the bearer oI - his penis,
does she not also violently destroy what is "Ior him more than himselI"?
The enigma oI this new femme fatale is that although, in contrast to the
classic femme fatale, she is totally transparent, openly assuming the role
oI a calculating bitch, the perIect embodiment oI what Baudrillard called
the "transparency oI Evil," her enigma persists. Here we encounter the
paradox already discerned by Hegel - sometimes, total selI-exposure and
selI-transparency, i.e. the awareness that there is no hidden content,
makes the subject even more enigmatic. Sometimes, being totally
outspoken is the most eIIective and cunning way oI deceiving the Other.
For that reason, the neo-noir femme fatale continues to exert her
irresistible seductive power on her poor partner. Her strategy is the one
oI deceiving him by openly telling the truth. The male partner is unable
to accept this, and so, he desperately clings to the conviction that, behind
the cold manipulative surIace, there must be a heart oI gold to be saved,
a person oI warm human Ieeling, and that her cold manipulative
approach is just a kind oI deIensive strategy. So, in the vein oI Freud's
well-known Jewish joke "Why are you telling me that you are going to
Lemberg, when you are actually going to Lemberg?" the basic implicit
reproach oI the sucker-partner to the new femme fatale could be
Iormulated as "Why do you act iI you are just a cold manipulative bitch,
when you are really just a cold manipulative bitch?"
4
This allows us Iurther to speciIy the Lacanian notion oI an authentic act.
Act is to be opposed to mere activity. Activity relies on some Iantasmatic
8]11]12 SIavoj ZIzek-8IbIIography]From "PassIonate Attachments" to DIs-dentIIIcatIon]Lacan Dot Com
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support, while the authentic act involves disturbing - "traversing" - the
Iantasy. In this precise sense, act is Ior Lacan on the side oI the object
qua real as opposed to signiIier - to "speech act." We can only perIorm
speech acts insoIar as we have accepted the Iundamental alienation in the
symbolic order and the Iantasmatic support necessary Ior the Iunctioning
oI this order, while the act as real is an event which occurs ex nihilo,
without any Iantasmatic support. As such, act as object is also to be
opposed to the subject, at least in the standard Lacanian sense oI the
"alienated" divided subject. The correlate to the act is a divided subject,
but not in the sense that because oI that division act is always Iailed or
displaced. On the contrary, act as traumatic tuche is that which divides
the subject who cannot ever subjectivize this act, assume it as "his own,"
posit himselI as its author-agent. The authentic act that I accomplish is
always by deIinition a Ioreign body, an intruder which simultaneously
attracts/Iascinates and also repels me, so that, iI and when I come too
close to it, this leads to my aphanisis, selI-erasure. II there is a subject to
the act, it is not the subject oI subjectivization, oI integrating the act into
the universe oI symbolic integration and recognition, oI assuming the act
as "my own," but rather it is an uncanny "acephalous" subject through
which the act takes place as that which is "in him more than himselI."
Act thus designates the level at which the Iundamental divisions and
displacements usually associated with the "Lacanian subject" |11| are
momentarily suspended. In the act, the subject, as Lacan puts it, posits
itselI as its own cause and is no longer determined by the decentered
object-cause. Thus iI we subtract Irom it its scenic imagery, its
Iascination with the divine majesty, and reduce it to the essential, Kant's
well-known description oI how a direct insight into the noumenal God as
the Thing in itselI would deprive us oI our Ireedom and turn us into
liIeless puppets paradoxically Iits perIectly the description oI the ethical
act.|12| This act is precisely something which unexpectedly "just
occurs." It is an occurrence which most surprises its agent itselI.|13| The
paradox is that in an authentic act, the highest Ireedom coincides with the
utmost passivity, with a reduction to a liIeless automaton who just
blindly perIorms its gestures. The problematic oI act thus compels us to
accept the radical shiIt oI perspective involved in the modern notion oI
Iinitude. What is so diIIicult to accept is not the Iact that the true act - in
which noumenal and phenomenal dimensions coincide - is Iorever out oI
our reach. The true trauma resides in the opposite awareness that there
are acts, that they do occur and that we have to come to terms with them.
This shiIt is homologous to that implied in the Kierkegaardian notion oI
"sickness unto death." The "sickness unto death" proper, its despair,
opposes the standard despair oI the individual who is split between the
certainty that death is the end, that there is no beyond oI eternal liIe and
the equal certainty that death is not the last thing, that there is another liIe
with its promise oI redemption and eternal bliss. The "sickness unto
death" rather involves the opposite paradox oI the subject who knows
that death is not the end, that he has an immortal soul, but cannot Iace the
exorbitant demands oI this Iact - the necessity to abandon vain aesthetic
pleasures and to work Ior his salvation - and so, desperately wants to
believe that death is the end, that there is no divine unconditional
demand exerting its pressure upon him. The standard religious je sais
bien, mais quand meme is inverted here. It is not that "I know very well
that I am a mere mortal living being, but I nonetheless desperately want
8]11]12 SIavoj ZIzek-8IbIIography]From "PassIonate Attachments" to DIs-dentIIIcatIon]Lacan Dot Com
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to believe that there is redemption in eternal liIe." It is rather that "I know
very well that I have an eternal soul responsible to God's unconditional
commandments, but I desperately want to believe that there is nothing
beyond death, I want to be relieved oI the unbearable pressure oI divine
injunction." In other words, in contrast to the individual caught in the
standard skeptical despair - i.e., the individual who knows he will die but
cannot accept it and hopes Ior eternal liIe - we have here, in the case oI
"sickness unto death," the individual who desperately wants to die, to
disappear Iorever, but knows that he cannot do it, that he is condemned
to eternal liIe. The predicament oI the individual "sick unto death" is the
same as that oI the Wagnerian heroes, Irom the Flving Dutchman to
AmIortas in Parsifal, who desperately strive Ior death, Ior the Iinal
annihilation and selI-obliteration which would relieve them oI the hell oI
their "undead" existence.
In the criticism oI Kant implicit in this notion oI the act, Lacan is thus
close to Hegel who also claimed that the unity oI the noumenal and the
phenomenal adjourned ad inIinitum in Kant is precisely what takes place
every time an authentic act is accomplished. Kant's mistake was to
presuppose that there is an act only insoIar as it is adequately
"subjectivized," that is, accomplished with a pure will, a will Iree oI any
"pathological" motivations. And, since one can never be sure that what I
did was eIIectively motivated by the moral Law as its sole motive, the
moral act turns into something which eIIectively never happens, but can
only be posited as the Iinal point oI an inIinite asymptotic approach oI
the puriIication oI the soul. For this reason, Kant, in order to guarantee
the ultimate possibility oI the act, had to propose his postulate oI the
immortality oI the soul, which, as it can be shown, eIIectively amounts to
its very opposite, the Sadean Iantasy oI the immortality oI the body.|14|
Only in such a way can one hope that, aIter endless approximation, one
will reach the point oI being able to accomplish a true moral act. The
point oI Lacan's criticism is thus that an authentic act does not
presuppose its agent, the way Kant assumes with misleading selI-
evidence, "at the level oI the act" with his will puriIied oI all pathological
motivations. It is inevitable, then, that the agent is not "at the level oI its
act," Ior he is himselI unpleasantly surprised by the "crazy thing he just
did" and is unable Iully to come to terms with what he did. This,
incidentally, is the usual structure oI heroic acts - somebody who, Ior a
long time, led an opportunistic liIe oI maneuvering and compromises, all
oI a sudden, inexplicably even to himselI, resolves to stand Iirmly, cost
what it may. Thus the paradox oI the act resides in the Iact that although
it is not "intentional" in the usual sense oI the term, it is nonetheless
accepted as something Ior which its agent is Iully responsible - "I cannot
do otherwise, yet I am nonetheless Iully Iree in doing it."
So, iI we return Ior a brieI moment to The Last Seduction, Linda
Fiorentino's gesture nevertheless does not quite Iit the description oI a
true ethical act, insoIar as she is presented as a perIect demoniac being,
as the subject with a diabolical will who is perIectly aware oI what she is
doing; she Iully subjectivizes her acts, insoIar as her Will is at the level oI
her wicked deeds. As such, she remains a male Iantasy: the Iantasy oI
encountering a perIect subject in the guise oI the absolutely corrupted
woman who Iully knows and wills what she is doing.
8]11]12 SIavoj ZIzek-8IbIIography]From "PassIonate Attachments" to DIs-dentIIIcatIon]Lacan Dot Com
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Consequently, this Lacanian notion oI act also enables us to break with
the deconstructionist ethics oI the irreducible Iinitude, oI how our
situation is always that oI a displaced being, caught in a constitutive lack,
so that all we can do is to assume heroically this lack, to assume
heroically the Iact that our situation is that oI being thrown into an
impenetrable Iinite context. The corollary oI this ethics, oI course, is that
the ultimate source oI totalitarian and other catastrophes is man's
presumption that he can overcome this condition oI Iinitude, lack and
displacement, and "act like God," in a total transparency, surpassing his
constitutive division. Lacan's answer to this is that absolute/unconditional
acts do occur, but not in the idealist guise oI a selI-transparent gesture
perIormed by a subject with a pure will who Iully intends them. They
occur, on the contrary, as a totally unpredictable tuche, a miraculous
event which shatters our lives. To put it in somewhat pathetic terms, this
is how the "divine" dimension is present in our lives, and the diIIerent
modalities oI ethical betrayal relate precisely to the diIIerent ways oI
betraying the act-event. The true source oI evil is not a Iinite mortal man
who acts like God, but a man who disavows that divine miracles occur
and reduces himselI to just another Iinite mortal being.|15|
Notes:
1. Judith Butler, The Psychic LiIe oI Power (StanIord: StanIord UP,
1997). Numbers in parentheses reIer to the pages oI this book.
2. Butler demonstrates that the Foucauldian "body" as the site oI
resistance is none other than the Freudian "psyche." Paradoxically,
"body" is Foucault's name Ior the psychic apparatus insoIar as it resists
the soul's domination. That is to say, when, in his well-known deIinition
oI the soul as the "prison oI the body," Foucault turns around the
standard Platonic-Christian deIinition oI the body as the "prison oI the
soul," what he calls the "body" is not simply the biological body, but is
that which is already caught in some kind oI pre-subjective psychic
apparatus.
3. Incidentally, Butler here blatantly contradicts Lacan Ior whom the
unconscious is "the Other's discourse," i.e. symbolic, not imaginary. Is
not the best known single line Irom Lacan the assertion that "the
Unconscious is structured like a language?" Slips and gaps are not Ior
Lacan thoroughly symbolic Iacts. They conIirm the Iunctioning oI the
signiIying network.
4. For example, apropos oI the army liIe, such a "passionate attachment"
is provided by a homosexual link which has to be disavowed iI it is to
remain operative. See Chapter 2 oI Slavoj Zizek, 7KH 3ODJXH RI
)DQWDVLHV (London: Verso, 1997).
5. One should link this opposition oI attachment and dis-attachment to
the old Freudian metapsychological opposition oI LiIe and Death drives.
In The Ego and the Id, Freud deIines these drives as the opposition
between the Iorces oI connection/unity and the Iorces oI
disconnection/disunity. Dis-attachment is thus death drive at its purest,
the gesture oI ontological "derailment" which throws "out oI joint" the
order oI Being. It is the gesture oI disinvestment, oI
"contraction"/withdrawal Irom being immersed in the world. The
primordial attachment is the counter-move to this negative gesture. In the
last resort, this negative tendency to disruption is none other than libido
itselI: what throws a subject "out oI joint" is none other than the
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traumatic encounter with fouissance.
6. See Jacques-Alain Miller, "Des Semblants dans la Relation Entre les
Sexes," La Cause Freudianne 36 (1997): 7-15.
7. Lacan's other example is that oI Andre Gide's wiIe who, aIter his
death, burned all his love letters to her, considered by him his most
precious possession.
8. I rely here on Kate Stables, British Film Institute, London.
9. The Iantasy oI the all-powerIul woman whose irresistible attraction
presents a threat not only to male domination, but to the very identity oI
the male subject, is the "Iundamental Iantasy" against which the male
symbolic identity deIines and sustains itselI.
10. For a detailed analysis oI the scene Irom Wild at Heart, see
Appendix 2 to Slavoj Zizek's The Plague of Fantasies.
11. That is, the split between the subject oI the enunciation and the
subject oI the enunciated/statement, the subject's "decenterment" with
regard to the symbolic big Other, and so on.
12. "Instead oI the conIlict which now the moral disposition has to wage
with inclinations and in which, aIter some deIeats, moral strength oI
mind may be gradually won, God and eternity in their awIul majesty
would stand unceasingly beIore our eyes... Thus most actions
conIorming to the law would be done Irom Iear, Iew would be done
Irom hope, none Irom duty. The moral worth oI our actions, on which
alone the worth oI the person and even oI the world depends in the eyes
oI supreme wisdom, would not exist at all. The conduct oI man, so long
as his nature remained as it is now, would be changed into mere
mechanism, where, as in a puppet show, everything would gesticulate
well but no liIe would be Iound in the Iigures." Immanuel Kant, Critique
of Practical Reason (New York: Macmillan, 1956), 152-153.
13. AIter an authentic act, my reaction is always, "I myselI do not know
how I was able to do that - it just happened!"
14. See Alenka Zupancic, "The Subject oI the Law," SIC 2, ed. Slavoj
Zizek (Durham: Duke UP, 1998).
15. In a Iurther elaboration, one should thus reread Lacan's matrix oI the
Iour discourses as three modes oI coming to terms with the trauma oI the
analytic act. The master's semblance resides in the Iact that he pretends to
nominate and thus directly translate into the symbolic Iidelity the
dimension oI the act. That is, the deIining Ieature oI the Master's gesture
is to change the act into a new master-signiIier. In contrast to the master,
the hysteric maintains the ambiguous attitude oI division towards the act,
insisting on the simultaneous necessity and impossibility oI its
symbolization. In contrast to both oI them, the perverse agent oI the
university discourse disavows that the re was the event oI an act in the
Iirst place. By means oI the chain oI knowledge, he wants to reduce the
consequences oI the act to just another thing which can be explained
away as part oI the normal run oI things.