The Dialectics of Liberation: Anarchism, Existentialism, and Decentralism. Part 2 - The Short History of Existentialism: VI - Post -Structuralists - Jacques Lacan

"The flower of a free life is the negation of a parameterized Real." - charlie777pt

1 - Introduction

"Love is to give what you don't have" - Jacques Lacan

In the next five posts about post-structuralism, I will dedicate in each one, to an Introduction as parts of the explanation of the movement and the analysis of one following authors, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, and Paul Ricoeur.

Post-structuralism brought in the concepts of human beings as a voluntarist, self-determined and self-constituted people, that fight against the order of the world, and where the speech can't be separated from the objects of the discourse, streaming in reality.

That means that being and existence are mutually shaping and there is no synchronic truth of reality that can be frozen but a diachronic continuous process moving in the axis of time, where the power of the word is transforming reality and being infleunced by it in our inner perceptions and our experience.

1.1 - Postmodernist thinking

Instrumentalism, Structuralism, Deconstructionism, Social Constructionism and Psychoanalysis, are the influences and oppositions of the universe of Post-structuralism and post-modern thinking.

https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmanyWvpWr7874rVwHcNY9f8AMu6ToQ2Yy9PhhEgWNMGag/post-structuralism-en.png

Instrumentalism in the lines of Pragmatism sees theories and concepts like tools for change and social research.
Existentialism has ties to Phenomenology and stresses the subjectivity of individual existence forming experience, in freedom of choice, building morale and truth by self-conviction.
Structuralism, as opposed to Existentialism, wanted to find the forms of phenomenon inside the structures and its meaning.
Deconstructionism is about finding meaning in cultural texts, that could have non-unanimous meanings, and wanted to understand the perception and categorization, and find the polarity of contradictions in the phenomena.
Social Constructionism mostly expressed in Lev Vygotsky's Social Constructivist Theory involves the theories of knowledge in sociology and communication, showing the connection between reality representations as a result of shared social construction.
Knowledge is constructed in the learning process by the cooperation between individuals but it is only possible with the motivation of the learner and a partner that can fulfill the existing gap.
Psychoanalysis, born with Freud's theory that mental illness could be cured by turning conscious the unconscious thoughts by insights and transfers, with the analyst in therapy sessions, to liberate the suppressed emotions and traumatic experiences, that can be seen in the symptoms.

Post-structuralism believes that there are no structures in society and culture, and emphasize the subjectivity of the knowledge and the truths of these entities.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” - C.G. Jung

2 - Jacques Lacan (1901-1981)

We will start this series with Jacques Lacan that was named the father of post-structuralism, and he had influences in the analytical movement, feminism, film theory, Marxism, and in the postmodern thinking, just to name some.

Lacan was not looking for the self or the truth, he was interested in the processes of the construction of knowledge by language and ideological structures, structuring and conditioning our conscious, unconscious and the symbolic order.

"The unconscious is structured like a language" - Jacques Lacan

Lacan's approach of language as a symbolic order, brings a more scientific and realistic view of the unconscious as a system and the discourse as a reflection of the structures, creating a bridge between psychoanalysis and the cultural anthropology of Lévi-Strauss.

Language is a virus that spreads in humans to understand and fill reality, relationships and themselves.

"The word is a key to the Unconscious." - charlie777pt

We are going to talk about the relationship between Freudian psychoanalysis and Lacan's approach of linguistics to structuralism and connecting the speaking subject as immersed in the culture, bringing a more scientific model to and more realistic approach to the conception of the unconscious.
Freudian orthodox theorists keep looking at the duality of symbolic thought and the structures, seeing it as the cultural reflection on the Super-Ego, but Lacan broke with this tradition using structuralism to criticize the psychoanalytic concepts.

Lacan in the middle of an era of the emergence of the linguistic theories introduced the concept of the sign to connect the word, to transform it in the logic model of the subject situated in the view of structural anthropology.
He was deeply influenced by the Heidegger’s concept of Dasein as the constraint of the Self, and he brought the possibility that the word could have the same structure of dreams to be used as an analytical material for the therapeutic sessions.

Lacan distinguishes Reality - the self-deceptive world we believe we are in, from the Real - the inexpressible materiality of existence behind language.

"Our words seem to be the Truth" - charlie777pt

The Freudian model of Id, Ego, and Superego was rearranged by Jacques Lacan the concepts of the Orders of the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic (The Borromean Knot) and the relation between symptoms and the word.

"The unconscious is that part of concrete discourse qua transindividual, which is not at the subject’s disposal in reestablishing the continuity of his conscious discourse" - Jacques Lacan in Ecrits

3 - The Borromean Knot of Jacques Lacan

https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZCKjpHgCYhVBAQ3FKnLRaT7nzcASAJduWWnCDuZWW4kj/lacan-knot-en.png

The Imaginary is fantasy and imagination, fascination and illusion, mother and feminine, visual and "imagetic", ego and duality.
The Real is the Id, Being and Nature, body and object, the unconscious forces and the instinct, the biological and the neurophysiologic, the needs and materiality, and the search from Truth and desire realization.
The Symbolic is The Superego, father and masculine, the subject and the speech (language), influenced by, law and order, culture and society, as forms and structures.

Psychological insecurity starts with the fragility or rupture of any of these circles, affecting people's ontological anxiety and possibly revealing observable disruptive behaviors and in the order of the discourse, revealing the order of the Symptoms that glues and consubstantiate the three rings together.

We look but we must find what we don't see, when we talk watch out what we do not speak, if listening, question what you not be earing, and whenever we touch we have to learn how to feel.

"Every word fills an Emptiness in the World" - charlie777pt

Lacan was above all a man who was exposed himself to his contradictions and convictions, and who fundamentally always asked who was looking for him was what people really wanted.

Writing this post was tuff because I read all the works of Lacan and his critics some years ago, and I was forced to give just a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg about the complexity of the Lacanian thought, and I hope it was a good motivation for readers to get to know him better.

We finished here the concentrated post about Jacques Lacan and the next posts will be on Michel Foucault, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, and Paul Ricoeur.

Short Video:
Psychotherapy - Jacques Lacan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OnhOXq7m4w
Long Video:
The Borromean Knot of Jacques Lacan; Or, How to Beat Your Death Drive" a lecture by Aron Dunlap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dSVnP8dUm4

Funny music video about language:
Laurie Anderson - Language Is A Virus (From Outer Space)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvOoR8m0oms

Photo source: Wikipedia

The Dialectics of Liberation: Anarchism, Existentialism and Decentralism.
Published Posts:

Introduction to the Dialectics of Liberation: Anarchism, Existentialism and Decentralism

I - Anarchism

What is Anarchism?

II - Existentialism

What is Existentialism ?
- Part 1 - Unplugged Introduction to Existentialism
- Part 2 - The Short History of Existentialism: I - Early Pre-existentialism
- Part 2 - The Short History of Existentialism: II - Pre-Existentialists
- Part 2 - The Short History of Existentialism: III - Phenomenology - Brentano to Husserl
- Part 2 - The Short History of Existentialism: III - Phenomenology - Jaspers to Sheller
- Part 2 - The Short History of Existentialism: IV - Humanistic Existentialists - Buber, Arendt, and Tillich
- Part 2 - The Short History of Existentialism: V - Humanistic Existentialists - Rollo May
- Part 2 - The Short History of Existentialism: V - Humanistic Existentialists - Abraham Maslow
- Part 2 - The Short History of Existentialism: VI - Post -Structuralism - Jacques Lacan - This post

Next posts on the Series:
II - Existentialism(Cont.)

What is Existentialism ? (Cont.)

Part 2 - The Short History of Existentialism: VI - Post -Structuralism - Michel Foucault
Part 2 - The Short History of Existentialism: VI - Post -Structuralism - Emmanuel Levinas
Part 2 - The Short History of Existentialism: VI - Post -Structuralism - Jacques Derrida
Part 2 - The Short History of Existentialism: VI - Post -Structuralism - Paul Ricouer
Part 3 - The Philosophy of Existentialism: I - The Meaning of Nonsense
Part 4 - The Fear of Freedom of Erich Fromm

The "Existentialists"
- Part 1 - The Players and the Times
- Part 2 - Jean Paul Sartre - the Man of The 20th Century
Humanism and Existentialism
Existentialism and Anarchism
The Future : Posthumanism, transhumanism and inhumanism

III - Decentralism

What is Decentralism?
The Philosophy of Decentralism
Blockchain and Decentralization
Anarchism, Existentialism, and Decentralism

IV - Dialectic for Self-Liberation

The Dialectics of Liberation Congress
Psychedelics, Libertarian and artistical movements
Psychoanalysis and Existentialism
The Anti-psychiatry movement

References:

- charlie777pt on Steemit:
Collectivism vs. Individualism
Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin - The Emergence of Anarchism
Social Reality: Index of the series about Social Reality: Power, Violence and change
Index of Chapter 1 - Anarchism of this series

Books:
Oizerman, Teodor.O Existencialismo e a Sociedade. Em: Oizerman, Teodor; Sève, Lucien; Gedoe, Andreas, Problemas Filosóficos.2a edição, Lisboa, Prelo, 1974.
Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Others
Levy, Bernard-Henry , O Século de Sartre,Quetzal Editores (2000)
Jacob Golomb, In Search of Authenticity - Existentialism From Kierkegaard to Camus (1995)
Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
Louis Sass, Madness and Modernism, Insanity in the light of modern art, literature, and thought (revised edition)
Hubert L. Dreyfus and Mark A. Wrathall, A Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism (2006)
Charles Eisenstein, Ascent of Humanity
Walter Kaufmann, Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre(1956)
Herbert Read, Existentialism, Marxism and Anarchism (1949 )
Martin Heidegger, Letter on "Humanism"(1947)
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power (1968)
Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism And Human Emotions
Jean-Paul Sartre, O Existencialismo é um Humanismo
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sense and Non-Sense
Michel Foucault, Power Knowledge Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977
Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom. New York: Henry Holt, (1941)
Erich Fromm, , Man for Himself. 1986
Gabriel Marcel, Being and Having: an existentialist diary
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and The Invisible
Paul Ricoeur, Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary
Monte Cazazza, The lyrics of "Six eyes from hell "
Brigite Cardoso e Cunha, Psicanálise e estruturalismo (1979)
G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia,

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