Fun with the Master/Slave Dialectic (or why you should be suspicious of nice people)

Remember transference - to seek authority, completeness, the knowledge of yourself to be found in the other

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If you're looking to me for answers, you're already approaching this wrong

If you're looking to me to complete you, you're just going to get a rehash of your own problems, over and over again (I am not your daddy)

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Resists this transference - resists the transfer of "authority" and of "knowledge"○

Psychoanalysts are just as screwed up as everyone else - they too (a la Freud in Dora) will project their own illness onto their patient if they pretend to be "knowing" and buy into their own authority

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Wants you to focus on the signifier and how you make meaning (only you can be the source of knowledge, just like you can only cure yourself)

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Referent isn't a thing

We pretend there is a "fixed" meaning - that signifiers and signifieds are tied - but in reality they are always in flux

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"Who knows the truth about meaning?"○

Desire, the unconscious will always keep this in flux○

Plus, a fixed sign = fascism (Lacan history)○

Narrative is very difficult with Lacan - no linearity, difficult to ascribe cause and effect○

Why is Lacan so damned hard to read??•

Vs. chimp looking into the mirror saying "pffft, that's a mirror"

Chimp stays whole, but we don't

Mes - my/mis

Connai - to know

To mis-know myself

Misrecognize - see something and mistake it for something else□

Mis-know - information you assumed was false□

Misrecognition vs. mis-knowing

First time the baby looks into the mirror and says, "Wow, that's me" - mesconnaissance [misrecognition]

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Mirror is just a representation of Self

Everything reverse, smaller, narrow, surface, no depth, 2D, forced perspective

Why is the child mis-knowing?○

The child sees this image and sees it looking at him

Not just looking at him, but that version of him has much more control over itself than he does

The perfect Self, the thing you want to become but can't □

Becomes IDEAL-I - the "better" version of the Self - a projection, external

Being Seen/Eyes - Bodily Control○

Absence, to be without

Ideal-I has no lack - it's whole, it's complete

Child has to recognize "I am solo" - I am not the world, I am not everything, I am just this image

Hostile relationship - Ideal-I is entirely imaginary, you can never achieve it because it doesn't exist

□

Ideal-I is unattainable, but this is normal□

Lacan says all of us are paranoiac schizophrenia □

Self becomes split - turns itself into an object

External □

I am lesser because I am not the Ideal-I□

If the Ideal-I is the Self, then you are not the Self, therefore you are Other□

Isolated, alienated from everyone else, alone, going to die

As soon as you are Other, you are separated from the world/Real□

"I am other"

If you had everything and you weren't separate, you wouldn't need to communicate with anyone

□

Acknowledges that you are not a part of me, we are not linked□

Ultimate statement of lack - anytime you speak

Experiences lack○

Like the Ideal-I, but not

Image, ego, cogito □

Image - fiction□

Ego - protects, defense□

Cogito - the "complete" moral knowing self - false, part of the fiction□

Cogito Dei - God□

Words in imago

Lacan says the imago is the false notion that you know your complete moral self - a defense mechanism of the ego

Imago located in the brain - internal

Necessary illusion that you have that makes you think that you are whole

Develops the imago○

Asymptotic - close to the self, but can never touch

Precipitate "I" - Lacan says "the I precipitates out" - what you identify with○

A Narration of The Mirror Stage•

Imago (image + ego + cogito: in Latin imago = Imago Dei)○

Self/other○

Other/other○

Mesconnaissance○

Dialectic○

Master/Slave dialectic○

Lack ○

Mimicry○

The Ideal-I○

The Subject○

The Gaze ○

Orders: The Symbolic, The Imaginary, The Real○

Key Terms•

Erits•Four Fundamentals of Psychoanalysis•Feminine Sexuality•

Lacan's Three Major Works

Whole•No Language•I am all and all is me•No Self/not Other•Sacks of flesh•NO control over their body•

Polymorphously perverse

mirror

The homunculus - the version of yourself you see in your brain -The Scream

Ionic Solution Ionic Solution

The Mirror StageThursday, March 14, 20132:21 PM

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Imago located in the brain - internal

Necessary illusion that you have that makes you think that you are whole

Asymptotic - close to the self, but can never touch

A result of the dialectic between Self and Ideal-I

At a subatomic level, we are lacking

I is not the total□

When two molecules join - precipitate (I) and also residual fluid (Real)

Asymptotic relationship - comes close but it can never actually touch

Lacan asks - is there a referent at all?□

I changes constantly

Every person is "I" - we always use it, but never try to equate other people's "I"

Metalanguage - something everyone has that we're all a part of it - LACK - because we all have I, we all have Lack, and we Lack the referent

I is defined by its context, so there can't be a referent□

We only exist in language

Sentence - to be subject to, but also to be the subject that does

If you only have access to the Self through language, you'll always be lost to yourself

I is always the subject - performer in action of the sentence, thing/object of study, to submit to

□

The I is a signifier - NOT A REFERENT - it can only ever approximate the Self

Precipitate "I" - Lacan says "the I precipitates out" - what you identify with○

Implies you are subject to it because you are responsible

Not "I choose, therefore I desire"

Lacan says Free Will is an illusion - other ways to look at Free Will than morality

Free Will - "I choose, therefore I am responsible, I am moral"○

Thesis - the way things are, the status quo

Thesis has a conflict with the anti-thesis

Precipitates into a new Thesis

Dialectic - about how change happens○

[Master - Ideal I - Thesis]

Confrontation with the [construct of the "Self" - Antithesis]

New [Master - still Ideal I]

You never move past this stage

The Ideal-I is always forcing you to remain the same, because it's a hostile relationship -always about conflict

Master/Slave dialectic - fusing Psychoanalysis with Marxism○

Means - stare, intensely, deeply, with intent to gather knowledge

Gaze at - "beauty"

Ideal-I is the first gaze - image in the mirror

Paranoia - I am always being watched

The Ideal-I is the thing gazing, always watching you□

The Ideal-I is the self you want to become but you can't□

Like the superego - what society says you should be□

Back to Freud - The Uncanny returns! - also the Superego

Partially Ideal-I, partially social norms and expectations

The Gaze ○

Superiority - point out flaws□

How people act when they think no one else is watching - secrets revealed - other people's vulnerability

□

Power through knowledge attain □

Sexual gratification through the eye

In the movie theatre, we are only eyes - do nothing but watch, but your vision's control □

American past times - watching sports, watching TV, watching movies, youtube, facebook -visual of other people

"inhabiting the Gaze" - you get to be the Gaze

We can only see what the camera sees, but the camera sees everything□

Camera becomes the Gaze - we are sewn too it, hence suture □

Facism and film - dangerous and pleasurable

Social mores, the world of the film, the contradictions that get resolved, and you're sutured to it

You get to judge and control it -be the Ideal-I at that time

How this works for the narrative □

EX: Return of Transference - Suture - transference to a film

Scocophilia○

Self/other

Master/slave (Hegel)

The gaze (internalized)

Mesconnaissance (Signifier as the Real)

Imago/Ideal-I

The Imaginary (all relations)

I lack - I am other - the creation of desire (primary narcissism): I lack myself, I am other to myself

A self lost to itself - under the delusion of the I which is forever now only a signifier

Symptom

Scopophilia

What happens and the fall-out (Recap - the actual powerpoint slide)○

Ionic Solution Ionic Solution

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Scopophilia

Think Freud - unconscious only through talking - dreams, slips, jokes, symptoms○

All we have to represent the Self (speaking is an act of desire) - we are just a ball of signifiers ○

You speak, and you think what you mean is clear, but the listener may not be getting it -master/slave dialectic - every time the signified is attached

Conflict between the Ideal-I (this is what it means) and the Self (can't really express itself, uncertain of meanings)

Also always changing because the master is always changing

Master controls what the signified is going to mean

We are dominated by meaning which is always in flux○

Separated from selves and others by language: every act of speaking is a reminder of Lack○

As soon as signification happens, child loses the Real FOREVER

The signifier is how we access it, but as soon as we have a signifier, the Real is lost because of the signification

Language and self - are always lost to the Real

Real - the impossible to say to access, the real return of the repressed (sublime)○

Remember Plato/Aristotle - Semiotics - As soon as we create a word for something, it exists to us, but it is also removed/mediated from us

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Language•

Lots of plays on words○

The interplay of words of vision and words of knowledge: reflection, insight, illuminate, "I see", "In light of", "Misrecognition/Meconnasance"

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Connection of knowledge, vision, and light ○

The "I" and the "eye"•

Id, Ego, Superego

Remember Freud's tripartite unconscious○

Inaccessible to us□

The Sublime - the Referent □

The Return of the Repressed□

Uncanny is a confrontation with the real□

Represents wholeness - master/slave □

The Real

Order created in the Mirror Stage□

Ego defense

Illusory image of the self as "whole" □

Identification of the fragmented self with the "image" of its whole self□

The Imaginary

The world of signifiers□

The world of the other□

Oedipus Complex - the Name of the Father - "No" - prohibition and LAW□

The Symbolic

Lacan has these too○

Lacan's Orders•

We can identify with it, we can define ourselves with it

It's not me, but enough like me that I can use it to learn about myself

Identification, recognition, self-definition

Little o - other○

Also (M)Other

Unidentifiable, utterly foreign

Mother holds baby up to the mirror, but the baby has to block her out to form Ideal-I

Harbinger of the Real

Hostile, cannibal, overly sexual, or wise, has knowledge we do not□

Cannibals that are going to destroy us OR sweet little smart alien like ET□

Smart Savage OR Hostile Savage□

Odd projections:

Big O - Other ○

Can demonize or sexualize the other ○

Other/other•

Film Studies○

Voyeurism○

Ideal-Is and identification (how reading functions)○

Anti-existentialism○

Anti-fascist in an anti-political way○

Gender and sex are in the symbolic

What does this mean about gender/sex?○

Why this matters?•

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