THE SUBJECT BEFORE SUBJECTIVATION
The them e o f this colloquium is Habermas. As an avowed dogm atic Laca- nian, I w ill o f course start w ith the question o f the relation between Habermas and Lacan as it is developed in the Habermas’ book which specifically addresses the issue o f the so-called »post-structuralism « : D er philosophische Diskurs der M oderne (cf. Habermas 1985). There is a curious detail concerning Lacan’s nam e: it is m entioned five times — I w ill quote all five places: p. 70 — »von Hegel und M arx bis Nietzsche und Heidegger, von Bataille und Lacan bis Fou
cault und D errida«; p. 120 — »Bataille, Lacan und Foucault«; p. 311 — »mit Lévi-Strauss und Lacan« ; p. 313 — »den zeitgenössischen Strukturalismus, die Ethnologie von Lévi-Strauss und die Lacansche Psychoanalyse« ; p. 359 — »von Freud oder C. G. Jung, von Lacan oder Lévi-Strauss« (!). Lacanian theory isn’t then perceived as a specific entity, it is — to use a term o f Laclau and M ouffe (L/M) — always articulated in a series o f equivalences. W hy this refusal to con fron t Lacan directly, in a book which includes lengthy discussions o f Ba
taille, Derrida and above all, Foucault, the real partner o f Habermas? The answer to this enigm a is to be found in another curiosity o f the Habermas’
book, in a curious accident w ith Althusser. Of course, I’m using here the term
»curious accident« in Sherlock-H olm sian sense: Althusser’s name isn’t even m entioned in H aberm as’ book, and that’s the curious accident. So, m y first thesis w ould be that the great debate occupying the foreground of today’s intellectual scene, the H aberm as-Foucault debate, is masking another opposi
tion, another debate w hich is theoretically m ore far-reaching: the Althusser- Lacan debate. There is som ething enigmatic in a sudden eclipse of the Althus- serian sch ool: it cannot be explained away in terms of a theoretical defeat or even insinuations concerning his private life (the serious mistakes o f Althusser, to use the good old Stalinist euphemism) — it is m ore as if there was in A l
thusser’s theory a traum atic kernel which had to be quickly forgotten, re
pressed; it’s an effective case o f theoretical amnesia.
W h y is it then that the opposition Althusser-Lacan was replaced, in a kind o f m etaphorical substitution, by the opposition Habermas-Foucault? I will try to approach this issue from the perspective o f the different ethical positions and at the same time, differen t notions of the subject that these four theories are im plying.
W ith Habermas, w e have the ethics of the unbroken com m unication, the Ideal o f the universal, transparent intersubjective com m unity; the notion of the subject behind it is, o f course, the p h ilosoph y-of-lan gu age-version o f the old subject of the transcendental reflection. W ith Foucault, w e have a turn against that universalist ethics w hich results in a kind o f esthetization of ethics: each subject must, without any support from universal rules, build his own mode of self-m astering, he must harm onize the antagonism o f the powers within himself, so to speak invent him self, produce him self as subject, find his ow n particular art o f living — that’s w h y Foucault was so fascinated by marginal life-styles constructing their particular m ode o f su bjectivity (the sado-masochistic homosexual universe, fo r exam ple). (Cf. Foucault 1984.) It is not so difficult to detect how this Foucaultian notion o f su bject enters the humanist-elitist traditon: its closest realisation w ou ld be the Renaissance ideal of the »all-round personality« mastering the passions within him self and m ak
ing out o f his own life a w ork o f art. Foucault’s notion o f the subject is rather a classical one: subject as the pow er o f self-m ediation and harm onizing the antagonistic forces, as a w ay o f m astering the »use o f pleasures« through a restoration o f the image o f self. Habermas and Foucault are here the tw o sides o f the same coin — the real break is represented by Althusser, b y his insistence on the fact that a certain cleft, a certain fissure, m isrecognition, characterizes the human condition as such, i. e. b y his thesis that the idea o f the possible end o f ideology is an ideological idea par excellen ce. (Cf. Althusser 1965.)
Although Althusser hasn’t w ritten a lot about ethical problem atics, it is clear that the w hole o f his w ork em bodies a certain radical ethical attitude which w e might call the heroism o f alienation or o f su bjective destitution:
the point is not just that w e must unmask the structural m echanism w hich is producing the effect of subject as ideological m isrecognition, but that w e must at the same time fully acknowledge this m isrecognitions as unavoidable, i. e.
that w e must accept a certain delusion as a condition o f our historical activity, o f assuming a role as agent of historical process. In this perspective, the subject as such is constituted through a certain m isrecognition: the process o f ideo
logical interpelation through which the subject »recognizes« itself in the calling up as the addressee o f the ideological Cause implies necessarily a certain short- circuit, an illusion o f the type o f »I already was there« w hich, as was pointed out by M ichel Pêcheux (cf. Pêcheux 1975), w h o has given us the m ost elabo
rated version of the theory o f interpelation, isn’t w ithout its com ical effects — the short-circuit o f »no w onder you w ere interpelated as proletarian, w hen you are a proletarian«. Here, Pêcheux is supplem enting M arxism w ith M arx- brothers whose w ell-know n jok e is »Y o u rem ind m e o f Emanuel Ravelli. — But I am Emanuel Ravelli. — Then no w on d er that you look lik e h im !« I m y
self once experienced this kind o f stupidity w hen I was obliged to phone som e
body in the name of m y father and presented m yself: »It’s me speaking, I’m the son o f m y father!« This was the point o f m y subjectivation.
In contrast to the Althusserian ethics o f alienation, w e m ay determine the ethics im plied by Lacanian psychoanalysis as that o f separation. The fam ous Lacanian m otto not to give way to our desire (ne pas céd er sur son désir), is aimed at the fact that w e must not obliterate the distance separating the real from its symbolisation. (Cf. Lacan 1973.) The best w ay to explain this w ould be to articulate its opposition the traditional M arxist notion o f social antago
nism. This traditional notion implies tw o interconnected features: 1. there
exists a certain fundam ental antagonism possesing an ontological priority to
»m ediate« all other antagonisms, determining their place and their specific w eight (class antagonism, econom ic exploitation) ; 2. historical development is bringing about, if not a necessity, at least an »objective possibility« o f solving this fundam ental antagonism and, in this way, mediating all other antago
nisms — to recall the w ell-k n ow n Marxist formulation, the same logic which drove mankind into alienation and class division, is also creating the condition fo r its abolition — »die W unde schliesst der Speer nur, der sie schlug /the w ound can b e healed on ly by the spear which made it/«, as Wagner, M arx’s contem porary, was already saying, through the mouth o f Parsifal. It is upon the unity o f these tw o features that the Marxist notion o f the revolution, of the revolutionary situation is foun ded: a situation o f metaphorical condensation in which it fin ally becom es clear to the everyday consciousness that it is not possible to solve any particular question without solving them all, i. e. without solving the fundam ental question which is em bodying the antagonistic character o f the social totality. In a »norm al«, pre-revolutionary state o f things, every
bod y is fighting his own particular battles (the workers are striking fo r better wages, feminists are fighting fo r the rights o f women, democrats for political and social freedom s, the ecologists against the exploitation of nature, partici
pants in the peace-m ovem ents against the war-danger, etc.). Marxists are using all the skill and cleverness o f their argumentation to convince the parti
cipants o f these particular struggles that the only real solution to their problem is to be foun d in the global revolution : as long as social relations are dominated by Capital, there w ill always be sexism in relations between the sexes, there w ill always be a threat o f global war, there will always be a danger that po
litical and social freedom s w ill be suspended, nature itself w ill always remain an object o f ruthless exploitation . . . (the last heroic and rather desperate at
tempt o f such a totalisation is to be found in Perry Anderson’s In the Tracks of H istorical M aterialism — cf. Anderson 1985). The global revolution will than abolish the fundam ental social antagonism, enabling the form ation of a transparent, rationally governed society.
The basic feature o f so-called »post-M arxism » is, of course, the break with this logic which, by the w ay, has not necessarily a Marxist connotation: almost any of the antagonisms w hich, in the light o f Marxism, appear to be secondary, can take over this essential role o f being the mediator o f all the others. We have, fo r exam ple, fem inist fundam entalism (no global liberation without the em ancipation o f w om en, w ithout the abolition o f sexism), democratic funda
mentalism (dem ocracy as the fundamental value o f western civilisation — all other struggles (econom ic, feminist, minorities, etc.) are just further applica
tions of the basic dem ocratic-egalitarian principle), ecological fundamentalism (ecological deadlock as the fundam ental problem o f mankind), and — why n ot? — also psychoanalytical fundamentalism as was articulated in Marcuse’s Eros and Civilisation (the key to liberation lies in changing the repressive libidinal structure: cf. M arcuse 1955).
In contrast to this essentialist perspective, »post-M arxism « affirm s the irreducible plurality of the particular struggles — their articulation into a series o f equivalences depends always on radical contingency o f the social-historical process. But this is not enough — I think that the real counterpoint to Marxism is developed only in the Lacanian reading of psychoanalysis. Let’s take the Freudian notion o f the »death drive«. Of course, w e have to abstract Freud’s
biologism : »death drive« is not a biological fact but a notion indicating that the human psychic apparatus is subordinated to a blind autom atism o f re
petition beyond pleasure-seeking, self-preservation o f life, accordance between man and his milieu. Man is — Hegel d ixit — »an animal sick to death«, an animal extorted by an insatiatable parasite (reason, logos, language). In this perspective, the »death drive«, this dim ension o f radical negativity, cannot be reduced to an expression of alienated social conditions, it defines la condition humaine as such: there is no solution, no escape from it, the thing to do is not to »overcom e«, to »abolish«, it, but to com e to terms w ith it, to learn to recognize it in its terrifying dimension, and then, on the basis o f this funda
mental recognition, to try to articulate a m odus vivend i with it. A ll »culture«
is in a w ay a réaction-form ation, an attempt to limit, canalize, precisely to cultivate this imbalance, this traumatic kernel, this radical antagonism through which man cuts his umbilical cord w ith nature, w ith the animal homeostasis.
It’s not only that the aim is no longer to abolish this drive-antagonism , but the aspiration to abolish it is precisely the source o f totalitarian tem ptation:
the greatest mass murders and holocausts w ere always done in the nam e o f Man as harmonious being, o f a New Man w ithout antagonistic tension.
We have the same logic with ecology : man as such is »the w ou n d o f na
ture«, there is no return to the natural balance, to accordance w ith his milieu, the only thing to do is to accept fully this cleft, fissure, this structural rooting out o f man, and to try as far as possible to patch things afterw ards; all other solutions — the illusion o f a possible return to Nature, the idea o f a total socialisation o f nature — are a direct path to totalitarianism. — W e have the same logic with fem inism : »there isn’t any sexual relationship«, i. e. the re
lation between sexes is p er definitionem »im possible«, an antagonistic one, there is n o final solution, and the only foundation fo r the som ewhat bearable relation between the sexes in an acknow ledgem ent o f this basic antagonism, of this basic impossibility. — We have the same logic w ith d em ocracy: it is — to use the w orn out phrase of Churchill — the w orst o f all possible systems, the only problem is that there isn’t any other w hich w ou ld b e better, i. e. de
m ocracy as such always entails the possibility o f corruption, o f the rule of the dull mediocrity, the only problem is that every attempt to elude this risk inherent in dem ocracy and to restore »real« dem ocracy, necessarily brings about its opposite, i. e. it ends in the abolition o f dem ocracy itself. B y the way, here it w ould be possible to defend a thesis that the first post-M arxist was none other than Hegel him self: his thesis is precisely that the antagonism of civil society cannot be supressed without a fall into totalitarian terrorism — the state can only afterwards limit its disastrous effects.
It is the merit o f L/M (cf. Laclau/M ouffe 1985) that they have, w ith their H egem ony and Socialist Strategy, developed a theory o f the social field founded on such a notion of antagonism, i. e. on an acknow ledgem ent o f an original
»traumatism«, an impossible kernel w hich resists sym bolisation, totalisation, sym bolic integration. Every attempt at sym bolisation/totalisation comes after
wards: it is an attempt to suture an original cleft, an attem pt w hich is, in the last resort, per definitionem doom ed to fail. Their accent is precisely that we must not be »radical« in the sense o f aim ing at a radical solution: w e al
ways live in an interspace and in borrow ed time, every solution is provisional and temporary, a kind o f postponing o f a fundam ental im possibility. So it seems to me that their title »radical dem ocracy« is to be taken som ehow para
d oxica lly: it is precisely NOT »radical« in a sence of pure, true democracy, its radical character im plies, on the contrary, that w e can save democracy only b y taking into account its ow n radical impossibility. Here w e can see how we have reached the other end o f the traditional Marxist standpoint: in traditional M arxism , the global solution-révolution is the condition o f the effective solu
tion o f all particular problem s, w hile here every provisional, tem porarily suc
cessful solution o f a particular problem entails an acknowledgem ent o f the global radical deadlock, im possibility, an acknowledgement o f a fundamental antagonism.
N ow, m y question here is, as with Althusser: which is the notion of the subject corresponding to this ethical position im plying an acknowledgement o f a radical deadlock, »antagonism «, proper to the human condition as such? The answer is that, in contrast to all above-m entioned positons, Lacan introduces a discontinuity, a fissure betw een the subject and the subjectivation: the subject is prior to subjectivation (in contrast to identity, which is a result of indenti- fication). Far from being the result o f the process o f subjectivation = inter
pelation = identification, the subject is precisely what is being masked by the process: the stake, the function o f this process is to conceal the basic dim esion o f the subject.
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Precisely concerning this Lacanian notion o f the subject, I would like to m ake a rem ark on L/M w hich is more a supplement that a criticism. M y main idea is that the notion o f the subject used in H egem ony and Socialist Strategy is not on the level o f the crucial notion o f antagonism proposed by L/M, and the reason fo r this is a certain lack o f clarity in the notion of antagonism itself.
In H egem on y and Socialist Strategy, w e even have a certain regression from Laclau’s previous b ook Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory (cf. Lac
lau 1977): in this book w e find a finely elaborated Althusserian theory of interpelation, w hile H egem on y offers us just a kind o f vague reference to the post-structuralist notion o f the »subject-positions«. W hy this regression?
M y optim istic reading o f it is that it is — to use again the good old Stalinist expression — »a dizziness from too much success«, an effect o f the fact that L/M had progressed to quickly, i. e. that, with the elaboration o f their concept o f antagonism, they have accom plished such a radical breaktrough that it wasn’t posible fo r them to fo llo w it immediately with a corresponding concept o f subject — hence the uncertainty regarding the subject in H egem ony.
L/M are basically still conceiving the subject in a w ay that characterises
» post-structuralism «, as an effect o f the ideological interpelation, from the perspective o f assuming d ifferen t »subject-positions«. The main thrust of their argum entation is directed against the classical notion of the Subject as a sub
stantial, essential entity, given in advance, dominating the social process and not being produced b y the contingency o f the discoursive process itself:
against this notion, they affirm that what w e have is a series of particular subject-positions (fem inist, ecologist, d em ocratic.. .) the signification o f which is not fix e d in advance: it changes according to the way they are articulated in a series o f equivalences through the m etaphoric surplus which defines the identity o f everyone o f them. Let us take, fo r example, the series fem inism - dem ocracy-peace m ovem ent-ecologism : insofar as the participant in the struggle fo r dem ocracy »finds out by experience« that there is no real democracy with
out the emancipation o f women, insofar as the participant in the ecological struggle »finds out by experience« that there is no real reconciliation with nature without abandoning the aggressive-m asculine attitude towards nature, insofar as the participant in the peace-m ovem ent »finds out by experience«
that there is no real peace without radical dém ocratisation, etc., that is to say, insofar as the identity o f each o f the fo u r above-m entioned positions is m arked with the metaphorical surplus o f the other three positions, w e can say that something like an unified subject-position is being constructed: to be a dem o
crat means at the same time to be a fem inist, etc. W hat w e must not overlook is, of course, that such an unity is always radically contingent, the result o f a sym bolic condensation, and not an expression of som e kind of internal ne
cessity according to which the interests o f all the above-m entioned positions would in the long run »objectively convene«. It is quite possible, fo r exam ple, to imagine an ecological position w hich sees the only solution in a strong anti
democratic, authoritarian state resuming control over the exploitation o f na
tural resources, etc.
Now, it is clear that such a notion o f the subject-positions still enters the frame o f the Althusserian ideological interpelation as constitutive o f the sub
ject: the subject-position is a m ode o f h ow w e recognize our position o f an (interested) agent of the social process, h ow w e experience our com m itm ent to a certain ideological Cause. M y idea is that w e have to supplem ent this notion with two thesis: (1) as soon as w e constitute ourselves as ideological subjects, as soon as w e respond to the interpelation and assume a certain subject-position, we are a priori, p er definition em deluded, w e are overlooking the radical dimension o f the social antagonism, that is to say the traum atic kernel the symbolisation o f w hich always fa ils; (2) it is precisely the Lacanian notion o f the subject as »the answer o f the real« w hich describes the subject in its confrontation with the antagonism, the subject w hich isn’t avoiding the traumatic dimension o f social antagonism.
To explain these two points, let’s take the case o f class antagonism. The relationship between the classes is antagonistic in the L/M sense o f the term, i. e, it is neither contradiction nor opposition but the »im possible« relationship between two terms: each o f them is preventing the other from achieving its identity with itself, to becom e what it really is. As soon as I recognize m yself, in an ideological interpelation, as a »proletarian«, I’m engaged in the social reality, fighting against the capitalist w h o is preventing me from realizing fully my human potential, blocking m y full developm ent. W here is here the ideo
logical illusion proper to the subject-position? It lies precisely in the fact that it is the capitalist, this external enemy, w h o is preventing m e from achieving an identity with m yself: the illusion is that after the eventual annihilation of the antagonistic enemy, I will finally abolish the antagonism and arrive at an identity with myself. And it’s the same w ith sexual antagonism : the fem inist struggle against patriarchal, m ale chauvinist oppression is necessarily filled out by the illusion that afterwards, w hen patriarchal oppression is abolished, women w ill finally achieve their fu ll identity w ith themselves, realize their human potentials, etc. Now, m y thesis is that to grasp the notion o f antagonism in its most radical dimension, w e should invert the relation betw een the tw o terms: it is not the external enemy w h o is preventing m e from achieving iden
tity with myself, but every identity is already in itself blocked, m arked by an impossibility, and the external enemy is sim ply the small piece, the rest o f
reality upon w hich w e »p roject« or »externalize« this intrinsic, immanent im possibility. That w ou ld be the last lesson o f the famous Hegelian dialectics of the M aster and the Servant, the lesson usually overlooked by Marxist read
ing: the M aster is in the last resort an invention of the Servant, it is a way fo r the Servant to »g iv e w ay as to his desire«, te evade the blockade o f his own desire b y projecting its reason into the external repression of the Master.
(Cf. Hegel 1952.) This is also the real ground for Freud’s insistence that the V erdrängung cannot be reduced to an internalization o f external repression (U n terd rü cku n g): there is a certain fundamental, radical, constitutive, self-in
flicted blockage, im pedim ent, hindrance of the drive, and the stake of the fascia nanting figu re o f external A uthority, o f its repressive force, is precisely to make us blind to this self-im pedim ent of the drive. That’s w hy w e could say that it’s precisely in the m om ent when w e achieve victory over the enemy in the antagonistic struggle in the social reality that w e experience the antagonism in its m ost radical dimension, as a self-hindrance : far from enabling us finally to achieve fu ll identity w ith ourselves, the moment of victory is the moment o f greatest loss. The Servant frees him self from the Master only when he experiences how the Master was only em bodying the auto-blockage of his own desire: w hat the M aster through his external repression was supposed to de
prive him of, to prevent him from realizing, he — the Servant — never pos
sessed. This is the m om ent called by Hegel »the loss of a loss«: the experience that w e never had w hat w e w ere supposed to have lost.
W e can also determ ine this experience o f a »loss o f a loss« as the expe
rience o f the »negation o f the negation«, i. e. o f pure antagonism where the negation is brought to the point o f self-reference. What is here at stake is no longer the fact that — as in an antagonistic fight with the external adversary — all the positivity, all the consistency of our position lies in the negation o f the adversary’s position and vice versa ; what is at stake is the fact that the negativity o f the other w hich is preventing me from achieving my full identity with m yself is just an externalisation o f m y own auto-negativity, o f m y self- hindering. The point is here h ow exactly to read, which accent to give to the crucial thesis o f L/M that in the antagonism, the negativity as such assumes a p ositive existen ce. W e can read this thesis as asserting that in an antagonistic relationship, the positivity o f »ou r« position consists only in the positivation o f our negative relation to the other, to the antagonist adversary: the whole consistency o f our position is in the fact that w e are negating the other, we are precisely this d rive to abolish, to annihilate our adversary. In this case, the antagonistic relation is in a w ay symm etrical: each position is only its negative relation to the other (the Master prevents the Servant from achieving full identity with him self and vice versa). But if w e radicalise the antagonistic figh t in reality to the point o f pure antagonism, the thesis that, in the anta
gonism , the negativity as such assumes a positive existence, must be read in another w a y : the other itself (the Master, let’s say) is, in his positivity, in his fascinating presence, just the positivation of our own — Servants — negative relationship towards ourselves, the positive embodiment o f our own self
blockage. The point is that here, the relationship is no longer symmetrical:
w e cannot say that the Servant is also in the same way just the positivation o f the negative self-relationship o f the Master. What we can perhaps say is that he is the Master’s sym ptom . W hen w e radicalize the antagonistic fight to a point o f pure antagonism, it is always one of the tw o moments which, through
the positivity o f the other, maintains a negative self-relationship: to use a Hegelian term, this other element functions as a »re fle x iv e determ ination«
(R eflexionsbestim m ung) o f the first (cf. Hegel 1966) — the Master, fo r exam ple, is just a reflexive determination o f the Servant. Or, to take the sexual d iffe rence/antagonism : Man is a reflexive determ ination o f W om an ’s im possibility of achieving an identitiy with itself (which is w h y the W om an is a sym ptom of the Man).
W e must then distinguish the experience o f antagonism in its radical form , as a lim it o f the social, as the im possibility around w hich the social field is structured, from antagonism as the relation betw een tw o antagonistic subject- positions: in Lacanian terms, w e must distinguish antagonism as real from the social reality o f the antagonistic fight. A n d the Lacanian notion o f the subject aims precisely at the experience o f »pure« antagonism as self-hindering, self blockage, this internal limit preventing the sym bolic field from realising its full identity : the stake o f the entire process o f subjectivation, o f assuming different subject-positions is, in the last resort, precisely to enable us to avoid this traumatic experience. The limit o f the social as it is defined by L/M , this paradoxical limit w hich causes that »the Society doesn’t exist« — the L/M paraphrase o f the Lacanian »W om an doesn’t exist« — this lim it isn’t just something that subverts each subject-position, each defined identity o f the subject; on the contrary, this lim it is at the same tim e what sustains the sub
ject in its most radical dim ension: »the su bject« in the Lacanian sense is the name fo r this internal limit, this internal inpossibility o f the Other, o f the
»substance«. The subject is a paradoxical entity w hich persists on ly insofar as its fu ll realisation is blocked, a paradoxical entity o f w hich what at first sight appears as a limitation is a positive condition. In short: there is an object, a remnant which resists subjectivation, and the subject is precisely correlative to this object.
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What is the status o f this subject b efore su bjectivation ? R ou gh ly speaking, the Lacanian answer w ould be that b efore subjectivation as identification, be
fore ideological interpelation, before assuming a certain subject-position, the subject is a subject o f a question. A t first sight, it m ay seem that w e are here again in the middle o f traditional philosophical problem atics: subject as a force of negativity which can question every given, objective status o f things, introducing into the positivity the openness o f the q u estion in g. . . in a w ord, the subject is a question. But the Lacanian position is its exact opposite: the subject is not a question, it is an answer, the answer o f the real to the question aksed by the great Other, the sym bolic order. (Cf. M iller 1984— 85.) It isn’t the subject which is asking the question — the subject is the void o f the im pos
sibility o f answering the question o f the Other.
To explain this, let us refer to the interesting book by A ron Bodenheim er W hy? On the obscenity o f questioning (cf. Bodenheim er 1984). Its fundam ental thesis is that there is something obscene in the act o f asking a question as such, without regard to its content. It’s the form o f the question as such w hich is obscene: the question lays open, exposes, denudes its addressee, it invades his sphere o f intim acy; which is w h y the basic, elem entary reaction to a question is shame, on the bodily level, blushing and low erin g our eyes — as a child whom w e are asking »W hat were you doin g?«. A lready in our everyday exp e
rience, it is clear that such a questioning o f children is a priori culpabilizing, provokin g in the other an effect o f guilt: »W hat w ere you doing? W here were you ? W hat does this w hite spot m ean?« — even if I can o ffer an answer which is ob jectively true and at the same time delivering me o f the guilt (»I was learning w ith m y friend«, fo r example), the guilt is already admitted on the level o f desire, every answer is an excuse: with a quick answer »I was learning with a frien d « I ’m precisely confirm ing that I didn’t really want to do that, that m y desire was to stroll about or something like th a t. . .
Questioning is the basic procedure o f the totalitarian intersubjective re
lationship: one needs not to refer to such exem plary cases as police interro
gation or religious confession, it is quite sufficient to recall the usual abusing o f the enem y in the real-socialist press: how m ore threating is the question
»W ho is really hiding behind . . . (the demands fo r the freedom o f press, for dem ocracy)? W ho is really pulling the strings o f the so-called new social m ovem ents? W ho is really speaking through them ?« than the vulgar, direct positive affirm ation »Those w h o demand the freedom of the press really want to open the space fo r the activity of the counter-socialist powers and in this w ay dim inish the hegem ony o f the working class .. .«. Totalitarian power is not a dogm atism w hich has all the answers, it is on the contrary the instance which has all the questions.
The basic indecency o f the question consists in its drive to put into words what should be left unspoken — as in a wellknown dialogue: »What were you doing? — Y ou know w hat! — Yes, but I want you to tell m e!« W hich is then the instance in the other, in its addressee, that the question is aiming at?
It aims at a point at w hich the answer isn’t possible, where the word is lacking, where the subject is exposed in his impotence. We can illustrate this by the inverse type o f the question, not b y the question o f the authority to its subjects but b y the question o f the subject-child to his father: the stake o f such a que
stion is always to catch the other w h o embodies the authority in his impotence, in his inability, in his lack. Bodenheim er articulates this dimension à propos the ch ild ’s question to the fath er: »Father, w hy is the sky blue?« — the child isn’t really interested in the sky as such, the real stake o f the question is to expose father’s im potence, his helplessness in front of the factum brutum that the sky is blue, his incapacity to substantiate this fact, to present the whole chain o f reasons leading to it. The blue o f the sky becom es thus not only father’s problem , but in a w a y even his fault: »The sky is blue, and you’re just staring at it like an idiot, incapable o f doing anything about it!« A question, even if it refers on ly to a given state o f things, makes the subject always fo r
m ally responsible fo r it, although only in a negative way, i. e. responsible for his im potence regarding this fact. This dimension becomes manifest in the negative form o f a question, w hen w e add to a question the so-called ne exp lé
tif. If I say »Is it w a rm ?«, w e might still be temped to conceive the question as sim ply aim ing at an objective state o f things; but if I say »Isn’t it w arm ?«, the addressee him self is aimed at as responsible fo r this state of things: »W hy is it w arm ? W hy didn’t you do anything about it?« — another confirmation o f the Lacanian thesis that the ne ex p létif is a point of the inscription of the subject in a signifying chain.
What is then this point in the other where the word fails, this point of im potence at w hich the question as such is aiming? The question as such creates shame because it aims at m y innermost, intimate kernel called by
Freud K ern unseres W esens and by Lacan das Ding, at that strange b o d y in m y interior which is »in me more than m e«, w hich is radically interior and the same time already exterior and fo r w hich Lacan coined a new w ord extim e. The real object o f the question is w hat Plato in Sym posion called — through the mouth o f Alcibiades — agalma, the hidden treasure, the object in me w hich precisely cannot be objectivated, dominated. The Lacanian form of this object is of course l’ objet p etit a, this point o f real in the very heart of subject which cannot be symbolised, w hich is produced as a rest, a rem nant, a left-over o f every signifying operation, a hard core em bodying h orrifying jouissance, enjoym ent and as such an object w hich at the same tim e attracts and repels us, i. e. which divides our desire and thus provokes shame.
Our thesis is that it is precisely the question in its obscene dim ension, in
sofar as it aims at the ex-tim ate kernel, at what is in subject m ore than subject, at the ob ject in subject, which is constitutive fo r the subject. In other words, there is no subject without guilt, the subject exists only insofar as it is ashamed because o f the object in him self, in its interior. This is the m eaning o f Lacan’s thesis that the subject is originally split, divided : it is divided as to the object in him self, as to the Thing, w hich at the same time attracts and repels him : $ <) a.
Let us resume: the subject is an answer o f the real (of the object, o f the traumatic kernel) to the question o f the Other. The question as such produces in its addressee an effect o f shame and guilt, it divides, it hysterizes him, and this hysterization is the constitution o f the subject : the status o f the subject as such is hysterical. The subject is constituted through its ow n division, split
ting, as to the object in him ; this object, this traum atic kernel is precisely the dimension that w e ’ve already indicated as that o f a »death drive«, o f a trau
matic imbalance, rooting out. Man as such is »nature sick to death«, derailed, run o ff the rails through a fascination with a lethal Thing. A n d the proces o f interpelation-subjectivation is precisely an essay to elude, to avoid this traumatic kernel through the identification: in assuming a sym bolic mandate, in recognizing himself in the interpelation, the subject evades the dim ension of the Thing. (There are, o f course, other possibilities o f avoiding this hysterical deadlock: the perverse position, fo r exam ple, in w hich the subject identifies himself immediately w ith the object and thus relieves him self o f the burden of the question. Psychoanalysis itself also de-hysterizes the subject, but in another w a y: at the end o f the psychoanalysis, the question is so to speak returned to the Other, the im potence o f the su bject displaces itself into the impossibility proper to the Other itself: the subject experiences the Other itself as blocked, failed, marked with a central im possibility, in brief, as »antago
nistic«.)
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The subject, then, as an impossible answer, consubstantive with a certain guilt — the first literary association w hich com es to our m ind is o f course the w ork o f Franz Kafka. And indeed, w e m ight say that the achievem ent of Kafka is to articulate this paradoxical status o f the subject before subjectiva
tion — w e were speaking o f shame and the last w ords o f The Trial are preci
sely » . . . it was as if he meant the shame o f it to outlive him .« (K afka 1985, 251.) W here lies the subversive force o f K afk a? W e might approach it from the Althusserian problem atic o f the ideological state-apparatuses and ideological
interpelation (cf. A lthusser 1976); the weak point o f Althusser is that he or his school never succeeded in thinking out the link between these tw o mechanisms : h ow does the ideological state-apparatus (i. e. the »m achine« in the Pascalian meaning, the signifying automatism) »internalize« itself, h ow does it produce the effect o f ideological belief in a Cause and the interconnected effect of subjectivation, o f recognition o f one’s ideological position? Kafka develops a kind o f criticism o f Althusser avant la lettre, in letting us see the gap between the tw o : K afk a’s fam ous »irrational« bureaucracy, this blind gigantic, non
sensical apparatus, isn’t it precisely the ideological state-apparatus with which a subject is con fron ted b efore any identification, any recognition takes place?
W hat can w e then learn fro m K afka?
In a first approach, the starting point in K afka’s novels is precisely that o f an interpelation: K afkian subject is interpelated by a mysterious bureau
cratic entity (Law, Castle). But this interpelation has a somewhat strange look:
it is so to say an interpelation without identification, it is not offering us a Cause to identity w ith — the K afkian subject is the subject desperately seeking a trait w ith w hich to identify, he doesn’t understand the meaning o f the call of the Other.
This situation is in itself culpabilizing. W hich is w hy w e find in K afka’s w ork the reverse, disquieting side of the com ical aspect o f interpelation: the illusion proper to interpelation, the illusion of »already-there«, shows its ne
gative face. The procedure o f culpabilization is precisely to put the subject into the position o f som ebody w h o is already supposed to know (to use this Lacanian term in another context). F or exam ple, in The Trial, Josef K. is summoned to appear b efore the Court on Sunday m orning; the exact time o f interrogation is not specified. W hen he finally finds the court-room , the judge reproaches him : »Y ou should have been here an hour and five minutes ago.« (Ibid., 47.) Som e o f us probably rem em ber the same situation from army service: the corporal culpabilizes us from the very beginning with a cry: »What are you staring at like idiots? D on t’t you know what to do? One really has to explain again and again things to y o u !« — and then he proceeds to give us instructions as if they w ere superfluous, as if w e should already know them. This is then the reverse side o f the ideological »already-there« illusion: the subject is cul- pabilized b y suddenly being throw n into a situation in which he is supposed to kn ow w hat is expected o f him.
*
W e have described fo u r different ethical positions and the four corre
spondent notions o f the su bject; at least concerning the first three of them, it is not difficu lt to fin d a global political standpoint w hich they im ply: if Habermas’ ethics o f the com m unicative action remains attached to the social- dem ocratic mainstream, to a faith in the progressive realisation of the political potentials o f M odernity; if Althusser, trying to save the Marxist orthodoxy o f the Class Struggle, Party and the Proletarian Dictatorship as a nostalgic lost O bject o f desire, has served as a theoretical fram ew ork for some of the Third W orld radical revolutionaries (from Latin Am erica to Maoism and Pol P ot w hose supporter is still the ex-althusserian Alain Badiou) ; if Foucault acti
v ely participated in the political struggles of the so-called marginalist m ove
ments (sexual and racial minorities, prisoners, the mentally insane . ..), the political potential o f the Lacanian theory has yet to be fully articulated. Is this
a contingent fact or an effect o f a structural im possibility? W hat is clear is that the first three versions (the progressism o f the social-dem ocratic m ain
stream, the Third-W orld radical orthod oxy, the m arginalist m ovem ents) are more and m ore attesting their unfitness to serve as a m odel fo r the Left today.
W ill the Lacanian theory succeed in offerin g a theoretical fram ew ork enabling us to articulate the new demands o f the Left, escaping the first three above- mentioned versions: H egem ony and Socialist S trategy perhaps indicates that a positive answer to this question cannot be totally excluded, h ow ever im pro
bable it m ay appear in view o f the fate o f the Lacanian theory to date.
What does this mean, »p olitically«? Let us just rem em ber the deadlock o f the old Maoist class-struggle radicalism : »class struggle is eternal« etc. — but where does the class enemy draw the fo rce fo r his eternal regeneration?
From the negative self-relationship o f the »proletarian« side itself. As soon as w e admit that, w e reach the level o f what Hegel calls »reconciliation« or
»absolute spirit« (cf. Hegel 1959); w e can still figh t our political battles, but we became aware o f the fact that they include a necessary delusion, w e becam e aware o f the limit o f political as such. T o conclude w ith a Lacanian parad ox:
there is nothing that couldn't be »politicised«, that couldn’ t becom e an object of political struggle, but still the field o f political is not »all«, there is a certain limit to it, although there is nothing beyon d this limit.
This limitation o f the field o f politics doesn’t entail any kind o f resigna
tion — or, if there is a resignation, it is a paradox o f the enthusiastic resigna
tion: I’m using here the term »enthusiasm « in its strict Kantian m eaning, as indicating an experience o f the (noumenal) ob ject through the failure itself of its adequate representation. Enthusiasm and resignation are not then tw o opposed mom ents: it is the »resignation« itself, i. e. the experience o f a certain impossibility, which incites enthusiasm.
REFERENCES
Althusser, L., 1965: Pour Marx, Paris.
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Anderson, P., 1985: In the Tracks of Historical Materialism, London.
Bodenheimer, A. R., 1984: Warum? Von der Obszönität des Fragens, Stuttgart.
Foucault, M., 1984: Power/Knowledge, London.
Habermas, J., 1985: Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne, Frankfurt/M.
Hegel, G. W. F., 1952: Phänomenologie des Geistes, Hamburg.
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