The months before my wife and I set out for the John Muir Trail, I spent time watching Ken Burn's documentary on the National Parks. Much of the footage is appropriately spent talking about John Muir. I quickly fell in love with this man - a wild man - ecstatic in nature - a man who literally got so physically ill when he was confined to society that his family had to let him back out into the woods or he would have died. I fell in love with him and and shortly thereafter, his wilderness.
I had done a fair amount of training for the 3-week hike well into the High Sierra backcountry. My wife had not. I felt confident hiking with her because the year prior, when she hadn't trained to top Mt. Whitney (the tallest mountain in the continental United States), she topped it anyways. She has an iron will. So, I figured the John Muir Trail was nothing more than a Mt. Whitney every other day. She did it once, she can do it ten more times in close succession! And so we went for it.
We hiked, untraditionally, from south to north. This is a common theme in my pilgrimages - to walk against the wind. Josh and I road our bikes west to east, thereby enduring terrible weather the entire time. Wendy, Jenny, and I hiked the Camino de Santiago in the spring, thereby getting rained and snowed on. I walk backwards. It's what I do.
We did not cover the entire route. We started just south of Mt Whitney, because we'd previously topped that and I think Anita swore against doing so again. We stared in Onion Valley, spending out first day going over a pass just to connect to the John Muir Trail on the other side. I remember setting off - getting unplugged, getting dirty. Anita was my fiancé at the time and I wasn't sure she'd marry me after this. We were plunging into the unknown. Prior to this hike, Anita had hiked 3 days and I had gone about 5 days in the backcountry. Now we were set for 3 weeks!
We are slow hikers, and we reached the mountain pass around dusk. It was a bad sign that we would end the first day of our voyage hiking down a mountain in the dark. And we were tired - we weren't going to make it to our hoped-for destination. This would become an all-too-common theme, and we would nearly run out of food. Regardless, by the time we set up camp that first night, we knew we were in over our heads, and it was only going to get worse the next day.
(To Be Continued...)
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Instrumental: My Unemployment Head
After finishing up teaching at Humboldt State University, I returned to Portland searching for work. Overall, I had a very good experience job hunting. I got a lot of interviews all within the first couple weeks of looking. I've landed a two-week internship as a writer, which might turn into full-time work. If it doesn't, there's still the possibility that I will be hired by a publishing company for a different writing/editing job. So, I can't really complain.
If you are a fan of my music, check out my album: Narratives Forgotten by clicking on this link!
Still, I was NERVOUS! The job market sucks, and in order to get 5 interviews, I needed to submit about 40 resumes. Plus, I don't handle having nothing to do very well. I need to be busy, and there are only so many episodes of Breaking Bad you can watch! Here is an instrumental I wrote and recorded when I was feeling, well, pretty damn anxious. It's appropriately dark.
If you are a fan of my music, check out my album: Narratives Forgotten by clicking on this link!
Thursday, January 19, 2012
New Song: Always By Your Side
Here's another love song I wrote for Anita.
Always By Your Side by tmhfband
And here are the lyrics:
When you waking up feeling bad with a fever on your brow
Always By Your Side by tmhfband
And here are the lyrics:
When you waking up feeling bad with a fever on your brow
And we don't know what you got and we don't really know how
To get well again, oh get well again
Baby I'll be brewing tea till you stop me
If you're ever feeling low, like you don't know where to go
And you're slumping in your seat, and you say you just don't know
Just what to do, oh now what to do
Baby you can talk to me, I'm always listening
I'm always by your side
If I could I'd turn the tide
I'll try anything I know
You need to understand
I'll always be your man
I'll be there any way I can
If we head out to the bar, and the tap if running strong
And you drank an amber down and asked for another round
And you're stumbling, oh you're stumbling
Baby go on lean on me, I'll help your walking
When we get home you can't talk, You're mumbling like a fool
You wanna say something so smart, no one understands you
I'm listening, I'm still listening
Baby I hear you loud and clear, talk right inside my ear
I'm always by your side
If I could I'd turn the tide
I'll try anything I know
You need to understand
I'll always be your man
I'll be there any way I can
When we're older than the dirt, and our skin is turning grey
And we feel like we're in hell, and someone's digging our grave
And we're withering, we're withering
We'll still cuddle in bed, until the day we're dead
I'm always by your side, you've always got my back
I'll love you so damn much, give myself a heart attack
We're blossoming, we're blossoming
Baby like a rose in June, we're always at full-bloom
I'm always by your side
If I could I'd turn the tide
I'll try anything I know
You need to understand
I'll always be your man
I'll be there any way I can
Monday, January 16, 2012
Prolonged Detention and Zizek
This is a bit of a follow-up on a previous post on Obama's "Prolonged Detention". You can read up on it by clicking here. I was reading a chapter of Zizek's In Defense of Lost Causes that discussed the US admission of torturing prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. I couldn't help but compare it to the US admission that we will hold prisoners without a trial.
Zizek argues that ay heinous act changes in a fundamental way when it's admitted to. The admittance itself marks a move. In his words: "The act of publicly reporting on something is never neutral, it affects the reported content itself" (48). He then goes on to talk about Dick Cheney's open admission of torture in November 2005 ("we also have to work... sort of the dark side... A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion") (48). That is: torture is necessary, I'm discussing it, making it known it should not be discussed further. The opposite happened, of course: opened up was a forum for the debate on torture.
Zizek makes one of his provocative comparisons here: let's say a couple coexists with a silent agreement that they can have extra-marital affairs. What if one day the man was to then openly tell his wife he was sleeping with someone else. He's now made it public - it's not longer a silent agreement - the pact, as it existed, is lost. That is, the wife is now rightfully angry because the open admission altered their situation and their agreement.
Cheney's open admission of torturing prisoners likewise altered our moral situation and Zizek holds that it is a dangerous game played by politicians with power. As the forum for the debate on torture is opened up, what has been morally reprehensible and outrageous is now given the respect of an official debate. Zizek argues that torture should be much like rape is: so morally repugnant that anyone who argued for or against it would be considered ridiculous. Even to argue against rape is considered silly because nobody takes the argument for it seriously. He writes, "the sign of progress in our societies is that one does not need to argue against rape: it is 'dogmatically' clear to everyone that rape is wrong, and we all feel that even arguing against it is too much. If someone were to advocate the legitimacy of rape, it would be a sad sign if one had to argue against him - he should simply appear ridiculous. And the same should hold for torture" (50).
But it's not so with torture anymore. There are philosophical texts that have been recently published that defend it, including Sam Harris's The End of Faith. As a publicly acknowledged moral dilemma (as rape is not a moral dilemma - it's a moral outrage), the public is victimized. The public has been brought back to a medieval debate. A great achievement in civilization has been lost.
Zizek notes that torture is legitimized by propping up both suspected terrorists and the US authorities as having an in-between status. That is, there are legal and illegal criminals. If you are a legal criminal, you are given a trial and a jury and you are not submitted to the threat of torture. If you are an illegal criminal, you get no trial or jury or even a conviction, and you are submitted to the threat of torture. The US authorities, as having an in-between status, act as a legal power that includes the power to bypass the law. That is: "acting as a legal power, their acts are no longer covered and constrained by the law - they operate in an empty space that is sustained by the law, and yet not regulated by the rule of law" (49). Zizek's point is that the admission of torturing prisoners made this in-between state legitimate. The public has to acknowledge and debate this reality as a viable option.
To be clear, Zizek is not saying that he would in no case torture someone. Imagine the unlikely scenario in a show like 24 (a scenario, incidentally that has not happened in Guantanamo Bay), where there's a ticking clock and thousands of people will be saved if we just tortured one suspected terrorist. Zizek would torture the man, for sure. But in this extreme scenario, Zizek would do it, but not say it. He would not publicly defend his action, for in a post-medieval ethical world, it would be considered a horrific and desperate act one wouldn't want to talk about. Zizek writes, "I can well imagine that, in a very specific situation, I would resort to torture - however in such a case, it is crucial that I do not elevate this desperate choice into a universal principle. Following the unavoidable brutal urgency of the moment, I should simply do it. Only in this way, in the very impossibility of elevating what I had to do into a universal principle, do I retain the proper sense of the horror of what I did" (50). How beautifully put! - Cheney, in his admission of torture, does not respect how horrific the act of torture is. And neither does the public now.
Can we make a similar comparison to prolonged detention? If we had no choice but to detain people without trial or jury or even an accusation, given our 21st century commitments to justice and democracy and fairness, wouldn't we want to keep that quiet? Wouldn't it be a truly desperate act - a shameful secret - a horror that has to be endured? But we debate it, we talk about it in public, the Obama administration defends it. Have our leaders crossed a line, then? As with Zizek's thinking on the legalization of torture, so long as we have prolonged detention, we also have illegal criminals and a justice system that has an 'in-between status'. What kind of moral line did we now cross with the naming of National Defense Authorization Act?
Zizek argues that ay heinous act changes in a fundamental way when it's admitted to. The admittance itself marks a move. In his words: "The act of publicly reporting on something is never neutral, it affects the reported content itself" (48). He then goes on to talk about Dick Cheney's open admission of torture in November 2005 ("we also have to work... sort of the dark side... A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion") (48). That is: torture is necessary, I'm discussing it, making it known it should not be discussed further. The opposite happened, of course: opened up was a forum for the debate on torture.
Zizek makes one of his provocative comparisons here: let's say a couple coexists with a silent agreement that they can have extra-marital affairs. What if one day the man was to then openly tell his wife he was sleeping with someone else. He's now made it public - it's not longer a silent agreement - the pact, as it existed, is lost. That is, the wife is now rightfully angry because the open admission altered their situation and their agreement.
Cheney's open admission of torturing prisoners likewise altered our moral situation and Zizek holds that it is a dangerous game played by politicians with power. As the forum for the debate on torture is opened up, what has been morally reprehensible and outrageous is now given the respect of an official debate. Zizek argues that torture should be much like rape is: so morally repugnant that anyone who argued for or against it would be considered ridiculous. Even to argue against rape is considered silly because nobody takes the argument for it seriously. He writes, "the sign of progress in our societies is that one does not need to argue against rape: it is 'dogmatically' clear to everyone that rape is wrong, and we all feel that even arguing against it is too much. If someone were to advocate the legitimacy of rape, it would be a sad sign if one had to argue against him - he should simply appear ridiculous. And the same should hold for torture" (50).
But it's not so with torture anymore. There are philosophical texts that have been recently published that defend it, including Sam Harris's The End of Faith. As a publicly acknowledged moral dilemma (as rape is not a moral dilemma - it's a moral outrage), the public is victimized. The public has been brought back to a medieval debate. A great achievement in civilization has been lost.
Zizek notes that torture is legitimized by propping up both suspected terrorists and the US authorities as having an in-between status. That is, there are legal and illegal criminals. If you are a legal criminal, you are given a trial and a jury and you are not submitted to the threat of torture. If you are an illegal criminal, you get no trial or jury or even a conviction, and you are submitted to the threat of torture. The US authorities, as having an in-between status, act as a legal power that includes the power to bypass the law. That is: "acting as a legal power, their acts are no longer covered and constrained by the law - they operate in an empty space that is sustained by the law, and yet not regulated by the rule of law" (49). Zizek's point is that the admission of torturing prisoners made this in-between state legitimate. The public has to acknowledge and debate this reality as a viable option.
To be clear, Zizek is not saying that he would in no case torture someone. Imagine the unlikely scenario in a show like 24 (a scenario, incidentally that has not happened in Guantanamo Bay), where there's a ticking clock and thousands of people will be saved if we just tortured one suspected terrorist. Zizek would torture the man, for sure. But in this extreme scenario, Zizek would do it, but not say it. He would not publicly defend his action, for in a post-medieval ethical world, it would be considered a horrific and desperate act one wouldn't want to talk about. Zizek writes, "I can well imagine that, in a very specific situation, I would resort to torture - however in such a case, it is crucial that I do not elevate this desperate choice into a universal principle. Following the unavoidable brutal urgency of the moment, I should simply do it. Only in this way, in the very impossibility of elevating what I had to do into a universal principle, do I retain the proper sense of the horror of what I did" (50). How beautifully put! - Cheney, in his admission of torture, does not respect how horrific the act of torture is. And neither does the public now.
Can we make a similar comparison to prolonged detention? If we had no choice but to detain people without trial or jury or even an accusation, given our 21st century commitments to justice and democracy and fairness, wouldn't we want to keep that quiet? Wouldn't it be a truly desperate act - a shameful secret - a horror that has to be endured? But we debate it, we talk about it in public, the Obama administration defends it. Have our leaders crossed a line, then? As with Zizek's thinking on the legalization of torture, so long as we have prolonged detention, we also have illegal criminals and a justice system that has an 'in-between status'. What kind of moral line did we now cross with the naming of National Defense Authorization Act?
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Book Review: Strange Pilgrims - Short Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of my favorite authors of all time. I was thinking about why that is, and I realized that nostalgia bleeds from his words. People who know me well, know me as essentially nostalgic - there's a sweet sadness I regularly tap into through reminiscences of the various journeys of my life. I see this same spirit in Gabriel Garcia Marquez, an author who always insists on referring to his characters by their full names.
Take for instance, the short story of Maria dos Prazeres. The main character, dreaming that she will die within the year, goes to the trouble of training her dog to cry at her grave. Her dog "Noi" makes a distinguished appearance in the story when Maria dos Prazeres, a retired whore, lets a gravesite salesman into her house:
"(Noi) jumped on the table, barking in a crazed way and almost ruining the map of the cemetery with his muddy paws. A single glance from his owner was enough to restrain his impetuosity. 'Noi!' she said without raising her voice. 'Baixa d'aci!'
"The animal shrank back, looking at her in consternation, and two bright tears rolled down his muzzle. Then Maria dos Prazeres turned her attention again to the salesman, and found him mystified.
"'Collons!' he exclaimed. 'He cried!'
"'It's just that he's upset at finding someone here at this hour,' Maria dos Prazeres apologized in a low voice. 'In general, when he comes into the house he shows more care than men do. Except for you, as I've already seen.'
"'But he cried, damn it!' the salesman repeated, then realized his breach of good manners and begged her pardon with a blush. 'Excuse me, but I've never seen anything like that, even in the movies.'
"'All dogs can do it if you train them,' she said. 'But instead the owners spend their whole lives teaching them habits that make them miserable, like eating from plates or doing their business on schedule and in the same place. And yet they don't teach them the natural things they enjoy, like laughing and crying.'" (101-102).
This is a typical scene in a Marquez story: the laws of nature are bent, and all in the name of nostalgia. Read this, regarding the training of Noi to cry over Maria dos Prazeres' grave upon her death:
"After many frustrated attempts, Maria dos Prazeres succeeded in having Noi pick out her grave on the massive hill of identical graves. Then she devoted herself to teaching him to cry over the empty tomb so that he would be in the habit of doing so after her death. She walked with him several times from her house to the cemetery, pointing out landmarks to help him memorize the Ramblas bus route, until she felt that he was skilled enough to be sent on his own.
"On the Sunday of the final test, at three o'clock in the afternoon, she took off his spring vest, in part because summer was in the air and in part to make him less conspicuous, and turned him loose. She saw him go down the shady side of the street at a quick trot, his little rump tight and sad beneath his jubilant tail, and it was all she could do not to cry - for herself, for him, for so many and such bitter years of shared illusions - until she saw him turn the corner at the Calle Mayor and head for the sea. Fifteen minutes later she took the Ramblas bus at the nearby Plaza de Lesseps, trying to see him through the window without being seen, and in fact she did see him, distant and serious among the Sunday flocks of children, waiting for the traffic light to change at the Paseo de Gracia.
"'My God,' she sighed. 'He looks so alone.'" (105-106)
I write this blog looking out my window during the first real snow-fall of the year in Portland and everything seems perfect. If you like these excerpts, check out Strange Pilgrims. I've only read masterful work from Marquez, and this is no exception. In the introduction, he quotes: "Good writers are appreciated more for what they tear up than for what they publish." That attitude gives an indication of why I've only been astounded by his work.
Strange Pilgrims is a collection of twelve short stories, all of them about Latin Americans living abroad. Bon Voyage, Mr. President is about the coming death of an ousted President exiled to Switzerland. Mr. President claims in the story: "Have no doubt, my dear friend: It would be the worst thing that could happen to our poor country if I were president." I Came Only To Use The Phone is the poetic version of One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest - not so much suspenseful as it is sad and beautiful. Light Is Like Water tells the tale of how a group of schoolboys, with a rowboat in the house, drowned in a house miles and miles away from any source of water because they all turned the lights on at once. There are many gems here, and I highly recommend the collection of stories, as well as anything this man has put on paper and not discarded.
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. Strange Pilgrims. Trans Edith Grossman. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
Take for instance, the short story of Maria dos Prazeres. The main character, dreaming that she will die within the year, goes to the trouble of training her dog to cry at her grave. Her dog "Noi" makes a distinguished appearance in the story when Maria dos Prazeres, a retired whore, lets a gravesite salesman into her house:
"(Noi) jumped on the table, barking in a crazed way and almost ruining the map of the cemetery with his muddy paws. A single glance from his owner was enough to restrain his impetuosity. 'Noi!' she said without raising her voice. 'Baixa d'aci!'
"The animal shrank back, looking at her in consternation, and two bright tears rolled down his muzzle. Then Maria dos Prazeres turned her attention again to the salesman, and found him mystified.
"'Collons!' he exclaimed. 'He cried!'
"'It's just that he's upset at finding someone here at this hour,' Maria dos Prazeres apologized in a low voice. 'In general, when he comes into the house he shows more care than men do. Except for you, as I've already seen.'
"'But he cried, damn it!' the salesman repeated, then realized his breach of good manners and begged her pardon with a blush. 'Excuse me, but I've never seen anything like that, even in the movies.'
"'All dogs can do it if you train them,' she said. 'But instead the owners spend their whole lives teaching them habits that make them miserable, like eating from plates or doing their business on schedule and in the same place. And yet they don't teach them the natural things they enjoy, like laughing and crying.'" (101-102).
This is a typical scene in a Marquez story: the laws of nature are bent, and all in the name of nostalgia. Read this, regarding the training of Noi to cry over Maria dos Prazeres' grave upon her death:
"After many frustrated attempts, Maria dos Prazeres succeeded in having Noi pick out her grave on the massive hill of identical graves. Then she devoted herself to teaching him to cry over the empty tomb so that he would be in the habit of doing so after her death. She walked with him several times from her house to the cemetery, pointing out landmarks to help him memorize the Ramblas bus route, until she felt that he was skilled enough to be sent on his own.
"On the Sunday of the final test, at three o'clock in the afternoon, she took off his spring vest, in part because summer was in the air and in part to make him less conspicuous, and turned him loose. She saw him go down the shady side of the street at a quick trot, his little rump tight and sad beneath his jubilant tail, and it was all she could do not to cry - for herself, for him, for so many and such bitter years of shared illusions - until she saw him turn the corner at the Calle Mayor and head for the sea. Fifteen minutes later she took the Ramblas bus at the nearby Plaza de Lesseps, trying to see him through the window without being seen, and in fact she did see him, distant and serious among the Sunday flocks of children, waiting for the traffic light to change at the Paseo de Gracia.
"'My God,' she sighed. 'He looks so alone.'" (105-106)
I write this blog looking out my window during the first real snow-fall of the year in Portland and everything seems perfect. If you like these excerpts, check out Strange Pilgrims. I've only read masterful work from Marquez, and this is no exception. In the introduction, he quotes: "Good writers are appreciated more for what they tear up than for what they publish." That attitude gives an indication of why I've only been astounded by his work.
Strange Pilgrims is a collection of twelve short stories, all of them about Latin Americans living abroad. Bon Voyage, Mr. President is about the coming death of an ousted President exiled to Switzerland. Mr. President claims in the story: "Have no doubt, my dear friend: It would be the worst thing that could happen to our poor country if I were president." I Came Only To Use The Phone is the poetic version of One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest - not so much suspenseful as it is sad and beautiful. Light Is Like Water tells the tale of how a group of schoolboys, with a rowboat in the house, drowned in a house miles and miles away from any source of water because they all turned the lights on at once. There are many gems here, and I highly recommend the collection of stories, as well as anything this man has put on paper and not discarded.
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. Strange Pilgrims. Trans Edith Grossman. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Lacan's Linguistic Hypothesis
January has been Lacan month for me! Here are a couple links: Lacan and the Mirror Stage and Lacan: The Four Discourses.
Today's blog is on Lacan's Linguistic Hypothesis. Lacan made a non-controversial claim that the primary characteristic that sets human beings apart from animals is the fact that human beings can speak. Going further, it would follow that in order to understand the human psyche, we would need to look at language. For Lacan, the unconscious is structured like a language. This sets him apart from Freud's hypothesis that the unconscious was made up of instinct and certainly theorists influenced by Freud like Jung who hypothesized that the unconscious has mystical significance. Lacanian Lionel Bailly said, "For Lacan, the unconscious is comprised of symbolic elements, and because we are speaking beings for whom language is the main vehicle of representation, its building block are words, and its structure is grammatical... This is why discourse in the setting of an analytical session is the only way of working effectively with it" (42).
Along with Freud, Lacan argued that the unconscious is comprised of what a person represses. As made up of words, this would mean that a person could not consciously express the 'unconscious discourse'. This discourse makes itself intelligible through dreams, slips of the tongue, pathological symptoms, the words we don't say, repetitions, and self-defeating acts of the person. We can start to uncover this discourse through psychoanalysis or serious self-reflection/criticism/questioning.
What would an unconscious made up of a discourse look like? We would need to look at the work of Ferdinand de Saussure to grasp it. Saussure argued against the view that language is essentially the matching up of a thing in the world with a name. The common way of thinking about language up until Saussure's breakthrough was that you had a language if you had, say, a physical cat lying on the couch, and you could point to that animal and match it to a word: "cat". Language is essentially a large number of these words, all indicating different things. Saussure's breakthrough was that language works in a different way - it involves a sound-image (signifier) and a concept (signified). The signifier can be thought of as "the hearer's psychological imprint of the sound" (a spoken or written word), "the impression it makes on our senses" (43). The signified is not a thing, like a physical cat, but the idea of a cat. The idea of a cat is far more than an object - it includes its relationship with other concepts. In ancient Egyptian culture, the idea of a cat would have spiritual significance. Today it would not. The idea of a cat for someone allergic to cats will be very different than for someone who is not. Or someone self-identified as a "dog-person" will understand "cat" very differently than someone who is a self-professed "cat-person". The point is that "cat", as a signifier, will never point simply to a physical object, but will make sense according to a whole network of meanings. This is Saussure's primary breakthrough, and Lacan was inspired by it when making his linguistic hypothesis.
In consciousness, human beings think according to this Saussurian model. From the very beginning of experience - as babies - we form concepts from within networks of meanings - the simplest being dialectical reasoning: we understand pleasure only when we understand pain, or a mother's presence only when we understand a mother's absence. Even before we can speak, we start to think in this way. This all exists within consciousness.
Once language is actually formulated in the human subject, the unconscious becomes possible. An unbearable thought can be expressed, and therefore repressed. The signifier (the sound-image) can be buried because out in the open, according to its place in a vast network of meanings, it is associated with emotional pain. We push that signifier back and bar it from this conscious network. As such, we see that for Lacan, the unconscious is made up of repressed signifiers or particular combinations of signifiers. As a person's network of meanings (which is conscious) can significantly change throughout their life, these repressed signifiers, or combination of signifiers, can be recovered and people can re-appropriate them. They can re-imagine those painful phonetic elements, this being a step towards curing pathologies. Bailly writes, "These elements recombine into new signifiers; and perhaps these new signifiers might recombine into new chains" (48).
As a personal example, upon graduating High School, college took on particularly painful meanings for me. I associated school with boredom, distraction from my work as a musician, a road toward an uninspiring status-quo, etc. Ultimately, I associated it with failure as I continually dropped out, taking F's for lack of even the ambition to officially drop the classes. "School" became a repressed signifier. When I walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain, I underwent a radical self-transformation. I adopted an entirely different linguistic structure. Words made sense according to 'pilgrimage', 'journey', and 'adventure'. "School" was brought up from my unconscious and understood according to this new linguistic structure. I was able to go back to school and eventually earn a Master's Degree in Philosophy because it made sense to me according to these more empowering meanings. Studying philosophy in an institution became a 'pilgrimage'.
Understanding the unconscious as filled with repressed signifiers helps Lacanian psychoanalysts make sense of dreams, as they are the one of the many "discourses of the unconscious". Lacan wrote, "the dream has the structure of a sentence... of a rebus... it has the structure of a form of writing [which] reproduces the simultaneously phonetic and symbolic use of signifying elements, which can also be found both in the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt and in the characters still used in China." When a Lacanian psychoanalyst listens to an account of a dream, they will look for signifiers that are metaphoric and have a metonymic structure. They will try and track down hidden associations through language as you describe your dream (you choose certain words or phrases to describe it). Bailly gives an example of how this might work:
"A young woman dreams that she's looking into a big chest full of clothes and strange objects. She finds what looks like the skin of a monkey but realizes that it is actually still alive. She experiences a sudden outburst of violence and crushes one of the animal's feet with her bare hands. She can feel the bones cracking.
"During the session, this patient described how she 'crushed the monkey's foot' , and tried unsuccessfully to remember a scene in her life in which a monkey or a foot were involved. When asked to go through the description again, she says, 'I can feel his foot being broken in my grip... the crushing of his toes... his tootsies' and suddenly remembers that Tootsie was the childhood nickname of her older sister, with whom she had a relationship of intense rivalry" (56).
In contrast to Freud, trying to track down dreams with reference to unconscious mechanisms, Lacanians track them down through investigating the Subject's choice of words. They try to use dreams to unearth repressed signifiers so that the Subject may be better able to re-imagine their meanings.
One last note on Lacan's Linguistic Hypothesis would be that the "backbone" of the human Subject are "Master Signifiers". These are those words and phrases that are continually repeated by a person, whether or not they will make sense to anyone else. Bailly refers to them as a linguistic tic. They are incredibly important because they serve the role of protecting the Subject's ego by redirecting signifiers in a signifying chain such that they will become bearable. When I associated "School" with boredom and failure, I did so with recourse to the Master Signifier "Grunge". I thought of myself as grunge - as Eddie Vedder and Layne Staley, even as I had little in my life that could compare with their lives. I talked as if I was part of a scene, even as my band was not going anywhere. I clung to the idea that we were on the verge of something big - that being Grunge meant something. It helped me redirect signifiers such as "school" - it helped me keep that painful concept at bay. "Grunge" became a mask I could hide behind as life kept pushing against it (like the night my band played for an audience of my Uncle and the bartender on a Monday night in downtown San Diego - a complete failure, but we were "paying our dues" - another master signifying chain allowing the potentially uncomfortable signifiers to reorganize themselves into something tolerable: 'failure' meant 'paying your dues' as opposed to 'failing'). The Lacanian psychoanalyst will search for these Master Signifiers to help bring out their opposite - those repressed signifying chains with which our pathologies stem.
This is a brief account of Lacan's Linguistic Hypothesis - an interesting theory with which valuable psychoanalysis can be done. But is it true...
Today's blog is on Lacan's Linguistic Hypothesis. Lacan made a non-controversial claim that the primary characteristic that sets human beings apart from animals is the fact that human beings can speak. Going further, it would follow that in order to understand the human psyche, we would need to look at language. For Lacan, the unconscious is structured like a language. This sets him apart from Freud's hypothesis that the unconscious was made up of instinct and certainly theorists influenced by Freud like Jung who hypothesized that the unconscious has mystical significance. Lacanian Lionel Bailly said, "For Lacan, the unconscious is comprised of symbolic elements, and because we are speaking beings for whom language is the main vehicle of representation, its building block are words, and its structure is grammatical... This is why discourse in the setting of an analytical session is the only way of working effectively with it" (42).
Along with Freud, Lacan argued that the unconscious is comprised of what a person represses. As made up of words, this would mean that a person could not consciously express the 'unconscious discourse'. This discourse makes itself intelligible through dreams, slips of the tongue, pathological symptoms, the words we don't say, repetitions, and self-defeating acts of the person. We can start to uncover this discourse through psychoanalysis or serious self-reflection/criticism/questioning.
What would an unconscious made up of a discourse look like? We would need to look at the work of Ferdinand de Saussure to grasp it. Saussure argued against the view that language is essentially the matching up of a thing in the world with a name. The common way of thinking about language up until Saussure's breakthrough was that you had a language if you had, say, a physical cat lying on the couch, and you could point to that animal and match it to a word: "cat". Language is essentially a large number of these words, all indicating different things. Saussure's breakthrough was that language works in a different way - it involves a sound-image (signifier) and a concept (signified). The signifier can be thought of as "the hearer's psychological imprint of the sound" (a spoken or written word), "the impression it makes on our senses" (43). The signified is not a thing, like a physical cat, but the idea of a cat. The idea of a cat is far more than an object - it includes its relationship with other concepts. In ancient Egyptian culture, the idea of a cat would have spiritual significance. Today it would not. The idea of a cat for someone allergic to cats will be very different than for someone who is not. Or someone self-identified as a "dog-person" will understand "cat" very differently than someone who is a self-professed "cat-person". The point is that "cat", as a signifier, will never point simply to a physical object, but will make sense according to a whole network of meanings. This is Saussure's primary breakthrough, and Lacan was inspired by it when making his linguistic hypothesis.
In consciousness, human beings think according to this Saussurian model. From the very beginning of experience - as babies - we form concepts from within networks of meanings - the simplest being dialectical reasoning: we understand pleasure only when we understand pain, or a mother's presence only when we understand a mother's absence. Even before we can speak, we start to think in this way. This all exists within consciousness.
Once language is actually formulated in the human subject, the unconscious becomes possible. An unbearable thought can be expressed, and therefore repressed. The signifier (the sound-image) can be buried because out in the open, according to its place in a vast network of meanings, it is associated with emotional pain. We push that signifier back and bar it from this conscious network. As such, we see that for Lacan, the unconscious is made up of repressed signifiers or particular combinations of signifiers. As a person's network of meanings (which is conscious) can significantly change throughout their life, these repressed signifiers, or combination of signifiers, can be recovered and people can re-appropriate them. They can re-imagine those painful phonetic elements, this being a step towards curing pathologies. Bailly writes, "These elements recombine into new signifiers; and perhaps these new signifiers might recombine into new chains" (48).
As a personal example, upon graduating High School, college took on particularly painful meanings for me. I associated school with boredom, distraction from my work as a musician, a road toward an uninspiring status-quo, etc. Ultimately, I associated it with failure as I continually dropped out, taking F's for lack of even the ambition to officially drop the classes. "School" became a repressed signifier. When I walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain, I underwent a radical self-transformation. I adopted an entirely different linguistic structure. Words made sense according to 'pilgrimage', 'journey', and 'adventure'. "School" was brought up from my unconscious and understood according to this new linguistic structure. I was able to go back to school and eventually earn a Master's Degree in Philosophy because it made sense to me according to these more empowering meanings. Studying philosophy in an institution became a 'pilgrimage'.
Understanding the unconscious as filled with repressed signifiers helps Lacanian psychoanalysts make sense of dreams, as they are the one of the many "discourses of the unconscious". Lacan wrote, "the dream has the structure of a sentence... of a rebus... it has the structure of a form of writing [which] reproduces the simultaneously phonetic and symbolic use of signifying elements, which can also be found both in the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt and in the characters still used in China." When a Lacanian psychoanalyst listens to an account of a dream, they will look for signifiers that are metaphoric and have a metonymic structure. They will try and track down hidden associations through language as you describe your dream (you choose certain words or phrases to describe it). Bailly gives an example of how this might work:
"A young woman dreams that she's looking into a big chest full of clothes and strange objects. She finds what looks like the skin of a monkey but realizes that it is actually still alive. She experiences a sudden outburst of violence and crushes one of the animal's feet with her bare hands. She can feel the bones cracking.
"During the session, this patient described how she 'crushed the monkey's foot' , and tried unsuccessfully to remember a scene in her life in which a monkey or a foot were involved. When asked to go through the description again, she says, 'I can feel his foot being broken in my grip... the crushing of his toes... his tootsies' and suddenly remembers that Tootsie was the childhood nickname of her older sister, with whom she had a relationship of intense rivalry" (56).
In contrast to Freud, trying to track down dreams with reference to unconscious mechanisms, Lacanians track them down through investigating the Subject's choice of words. They try to use dreams to unearth repressed signifiers so that the Subject may be better able to re-imagine their meanings.
One last note on Lacan's Linguistic Hypothesis would be that the "backbone" of the human Subject are "Master Signifiers". These are those words and phrases that are continually repeated by a person, whether or not they will make sense to anyone else. Bailly refers to them as a linguistic tic. They are incredibly important because they serve the role of protecting the Subject's ego by redirecting signifiers in a signifying chain such that they will become bearable. When I associated "School" with boredom and failure, I did so with recourse to the Master Signifier "Grunge". I thought of myself as grunge - as Eddie Vedder and Layne Staley, even as I had little in my life that could compare with their lives. I talked as if I was part of a scene, even as my band was not going anywhere. I clung to the idea that we were on the verge of something big - that being Grunge meant something. It helped me redirect signifiers such as "school" - it helped me keep that painful concept at bay. "Grunge" became a mask I could hide behind as life kept pushing against it (like the night my band played for an audience of my Uncle and the bartender on a Monday night in downtown San Diego - a complete failure, but we were "paying our dues" - another master signifying chain allowing the potentially uncomfortable signifiers to reorganize themselves into something tolerable: 'failure' meant 'paying your dues' as opposed to 'failing'). The Lacanian psychoanalyst will search for these Master Signifiers to help bring out their opposite - those repressed signifying chains with which our pathologies stem.
This is a brief account of Lacan's Linguistic Hypothesis - an interesting theory with which valuable psychoanalysis can be done. But is it true...
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Lacan: The Four Discourses
In Lacan's Seminar XVII, in 1969, we come upon "The Four Discourses". We can think of the discourses as different ways that people relate to each other. As we noted in the Mirror Stage (check out this link for an explanation), subjectivity is born in the other - even self-consciousness is born in our relation to our own mirror image - a reflection, an other. The four discourses are four different ways that a Subject relates to an Other (this Other could be another person, an institution, an analyst, a doctor, a lawyer, a law, a teacher, a friend, a parent, etc.).
The first discourse is that of the Master. In this type of Subject/Other relationship the Other addresses the Subject with regard to their knowledge or talents. The Subject is addressed according to his/her functional role. I think about my days rowing for Humboldt State University. When we would gather prior to a race and the coach would give us a pep talk, the coach would address us according to our function in the boat - according to our Strength, our Endurance, our Will. These words are what Lacan would call Master Signifiers. Pep talks inspire us because, as members of a collective, we understand ourselves within that collective according to certain Signifiers (words which are embedded in a network of meanings). After the hours and hours of exercise and waking up early and pushing our physical limits, we rowers self-identified with such Signifiers as "Strong," "Determined," "Crazy," etc. The pep talk is used to address those Signifiers within us to motivate our actions. The Master (the coach), upon addressing that embedded "knowledge" within us, can then sit back, watch the race, and enjoy the fight we put up for him/her. The Discourse of the Master is a common type of discourse. When a boss orders work to be done, she is not addressing the worker, but his expertise - his embedded knowledge. When military leaders order their soldiers, it is again with regard to their embedded training. In the Discourse of the Master, social hierarchies are also exploited. The Subject's embedded 'knowledge' is in service to the Master, which is exploited in the way the Master addresses the Subject. The Signifiers are addressed by the Master and the subject is considered, in Lacanian terms, barred.
The second discourse is that of the University. This type of discourse is not unique to schools, it can be found any time the Master Signifiers of an Institution are addressed. The embedded knowledge is not found in the subject being addressed, as with the Discourse of the Master. The embedded knowledge is supposedly embodied by the Institution. As the Subject searches for that hidden piece of truth or knowledge - that objet petit a (that object cause of desire - it is our desire that we find that elusive something that will make us happier, better, respected, enlightened, healthy...), the Institution represents that place where that object of our desire exists. So, relevant Master Signifiers in this context are "Honor," "Prestige," "Distinction," and "Success." As the Subject is lacking in these and/or other Signifiers (self-identifications), the "University" (or Institution) will step up and say, "If you walk through these doors, your lack will be filled." The mystique of the University is that, upon graduating, a void in your life will be filled. Consider the most prestigious schools - Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, etc. If you were to meet a graduate of one of these institutions, you would be awed before sitting down and having an intellectual conversation with them. The mystique of their graduating from a distinguished university gives the impression that they are themselves distinguished. But look at the case of Steve Jobs. He did not graduate from a university, and yet he made a profound impact on the world through his genius. This is not to say that universities are not important in helping people learn and in helping people specialize in subjects, but as a form of discourse in which the unfulfilled 'student' seeks fulfillment, it is essential to the legitimacy of the school that it not only teach, but that it retain a mystique about it - that it retains these Master Signifiers. Consider a University brochure. It will address the prospective student with regard to certain important words that give it an aura of honor and prestige. The more expensive the school, the more publicly accepted is the prestige it advertises. Governmental institutions also work from within this discourse. Obama is currently reducing the US military significantly. Debates are now raging. Why is it so important that the United States remain the world's leading military might? Because, as an institution, the US government has a stake in its being understood as holding certain signifiers, including "Strong," "Powerful," "World Leader." US subjects look to their institutions to fill those gaps in themselves when involved in this discourse of the University. They will not vote for a politician that doesn't emphasize them because in their relationships with the institutions that rule them, they need to feel powerful. The Other represents that power for them.
The third discourse is that of the Analyst. In this relationship, the Analyst him/herself becomes the symbolized objet petit a. The patient, sitting across from the Analyst, sees the Analyst as having an answer to their problem, or an explanation to their feelings of lack. In psychoanalysis there is a phenomenon called Transference. That is, the Analyst, if they are good, will not bring their own ego into the treatment. They will act as a mirror for the Analysand (the patient). When there is a full transference (the Analyst acts as a perfect mirror), the Analysand, believing that the Analyst has an answer for him, will produce those important Signifiers (those words, embedded in meanings, that are at the root of the reason they seek treatment) and they will be mirrored right back to him. This is a difficult discourse to wrap your mind around, but just consider that a good Analyst will not be a Master and wield power, nor will they be a University and wield knowledge. A good Analyst will become a mirror through which the patient can work out answers for him/herself. The Analyst, then, takes on all sorts of projections produced by the patient. They become a symbolic object of desire for the patient. As treatment progresses, the patient will come to understand that the Analyst does not have an answer for him/her, and the Signifiers (important words/meanings) themselves unlock potential answers. Just think of a friend or family member who, when you confide in him/her, does not provide an answer ("Oh, everything will work itself out" or "It's meant to be"). The friend or family member who listens and does not provide an answer, plays the role of the Analyst. They act as a mirror - a sounding board - so you can come to your own resolution or course of action.
The fourth discourse is that of the Hysteric. This is the relationship that Lacan argues makes possible true learning. In this discourse, the Other produces Master Signifiers (important meaningful words) and the Subject responds through 'hysterical questioning' - pushing those Signifiers up to the limits of knowledge, ultimately frustrated when that limit is reached. Socrates worked within this discourse. He would reach out to people and hear them talk of "Piety" and "Justice" - Master Signifiers that held a special place for them and for Athenian Society. He would respond through a series of questions that would unearth inconsistencies and problems in their reasoning. Socratic dialogues typically end with these Master Signifiers held up to their limits, and we know that we do not know. Socrates did not address his friends as a Master, trying to provide an answer. He would address his friends as one seeking knowledge, providing a question. Curiosity is the position of the Hysteric. She questions the Master, and thereby acquires knowledge. This is the one and only discourse in which the Master Signifiers of the Other are addressed and put to the test.
Any comments are more than welcomed! Thanks for reading.
The first discourse is that of the Master. In this type of Subject/Other relationship the Other addresses the Subject with regard to their knowledge or talents. The Subject is addressed according to his/her functional role. I think about my days rowing for Humboldt State University. When we would gather prior to a race and the coach would give us a pep talk, the coach would address us according to our function in the boat - according to our Strength, our Endurance, our Will. These words are what Lacan would call Master Signifiers. Pep talks inspire us because, as members of a collective, we understand ourselves within that collective according to certain Signifiers (words which are embedded in a network of meanings). After the hours and hours of exercise and waking up early and pushing our physical limits, we rowers self-identified with such Signifiers as "Strong," "Determined," "Crazy," etc. The pep talk is used to address those Signifiers within us to motivate our actions. The Master (the coach), upon addressing that embedded "knowledge" within us, can then sit back, watch the race, and enjoy the fight we put up for him/her. The Discourse of the Master is a common type of discourse. When a boss orders work to be done, she is not addressing the worker, but his expertise - his embedded knowledge. When military leaders order their soldiers, it is again with regard to their embedded training. In the Discourse of the Master, social hierarchies are also exploited. The Subject's embedded 'knowledge' is in service to the Master, which is exploited in the way the Master addresses the Subject. The Signifiers are addressed by the Master and the subject is considered, in Lacanian terms, barred.
The second discourse is that of the University. This type of discourse is not unique to schools, it can be found any time the Master Signifiers of an Institution are addressed. The embedded knowledge is not found in the subject being addressed, as with the Discourse of the Master. The embedded knowledge is supposedly embodied by the Institution. As the Subject searches for that hidden piece of truth or knowledge - that objet petit a (that object cause of desire - it is our desire that we find that elusive something that will make us happier, better, respected, enlightened, healthy...), the Institution represents that place where that object of our desire exists. So, relevant Master Signifiers in this context are "Honor," "Prestige," "Distinction," and "Success." As the Subject is lacking in these and/or other Signifiers (self-identifications), the "University" (or Institution) will step up and say, "If you walk through these doors, your lack will be filled." The mystique of the University is that, upon graduating, a void in your life will be filled. Consider the most prestigious schools - Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, etc. If you were to meet a graduate of one of these institutions, you would be awed before sitting down and having an intellectual conversation with them. The mystique of their graduating from a distinguished university gives the impression that they are themselves distinguished. But look at the case of Steve Jobs. He did not graduate from a university, and yet he made a profound impact on the world through his genius. This is not to say that universities are not important in helping people learn and in helping people specialize in subjects, but as a form of discourse in which the unfulfilled 'student' seeks fulfillment, it is essential to the legitimacy of the school that it not only teach, but that it retain a mystique about it - that it retains these Master Signifiers. Consider a University brochure. It will address the prospective student with regard to certain important words that give it an aura of honor and prestige. The more expensive the school, the more publicly accepted is the prestige it advertises. Governmental institutions also work from within this discourse. Obama is currently reducing the US military significantly. Debates are now raging. Why is it so important that the United States remain the world's leading military might? Because, as an institution, the US government has a stake in its being understood as holding certain signifiers, including "Strong," "Powerful," "World Leader." US subjects look to their institutions to fill those gaps in themselves when involved in this discourse of the University. They will not vote for a politician that doesn't emphasize them because in their relationships with the institutions that rule them, they need to feel powerful. The Other represents that power for them.
The third discourse is that of the Analyst. In this relationship, the Analyst him/herself becomes the symbolized objet petit a. The patient, sitting across from the Analyst, sees the Analyst as having an answer to their problem, or an explanation to their feelings of lack. In psychoanalysis there is a phenomenon called Transference. That is, the Analyst, if they are good, will not bring their own ego into the treatment. They will act as a mirror for the Analysand (the patient). When there is a full transference (the Analyst acts as a perfect mirror), the Analysand, believing that the Analyst has an answer for him, will produce those important Signifiers (those words, embedded in meanings, that are at the root of the reason they seek treatment) and they will be mirrored right back to him. This is a difficult discourse to wrap your mind around, but just consider that a good Analyst will not be a Master and wield power, nor will they be a University and wield knowledge. A good Analyst will become a mirror through which the patient can work out answers for him/herself. The Analyst, then, takes on all sorts of projections produced by the patient. They become a symbolic object of desire for the patient. As treatment progresses, the patient will come to understand that the Analyst does not have an answer for him/her, and the Signifiers (important words/meanings) themselves unlock potential answers. Just think of a friend or family member who, when you confide in him/her, does not provide an answer ("Oh, everything will work itself out" or "It's meant to be"). The friend or family member who listens and does not provide an answer, plays the role of the Analyst. They act as a mirror - a sounding board - so you can come to your own resolution or course of action.
The fourth discourse is that of the Hysteric. This is the relationship that Lacan argues makes possible true learning. In this discourse, the Other produces Master Signifiers (important meaningful words) and the Subject responds through 'hysterical questioning' - pushing those Signifiers up to the limits of knowledge, ultimately frustrated when that limit is reached. Socrates worked within this discourse. He would reach out to people and hear them talk of "Piety" and "Justice" - Master Signifiers that held a special place for them and for Athenian Society. He would respond through a series of questions that would unearth inconsistencies and problems in their reasoning. Socratic dialogues typically end with these Master Signifiers held up to their limits, and we know that we do not know. Socrates did not address his friends as a Master, trying to provide an answer. He would address his friends as one seeking knowledge, providing a question. Curiosity is the position of the Hysteric. She questions the Master, and thereby acquires knowledge. This is the one and only discourse in which the Master Signifiers of the Other are addressed and put to the test.
Any comments are more than welcomed! Thanks for reading.
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