What is Jouissance?

Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, Lacan: The Absolute Master

Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen is actually quite the expert, though he’s also known for being a pretty sharp critic of Sigmund Freud and his entire body of work. I'm really curious to see how he handles this particular book on Jacques Lacan.

Just wanted to drop this here so everything stays organized and easy to find—I'm pulling together all the bits and pieces related to Lacan in one spot:

Ellie Ragland, Essays on The Pleasures of Death : from Freud to Lacan

I thought this might catch the eye of some of the theory buffs here (though honestly, I was thinking specifically of 🙂):

Sergo Andre, What Does a Woman Want (The Lacanian Clinical Field)

And maybe this one too:

Jan Campbell, Arguing with The Phallus : feminist Queer and Postcolonial Theory : a Psychoanalytic Contribution

Lacan and Science

@na ofu - you might actually stumble upon some answers here regarding how Lacanian psychoanalysis fits in with the natural sciences

Schneiderman, Returning to Freud : Clinical Psychoanalysis in the School of Lacan

Dictionary of Freudian Terms

There’s plenty of that to go around, kid...

Jacob Newman77 said:Well then, go ahead and start it. We can pick up our conversation about the hysterical position over there... you've piqued my interest. (And let me know when you do, drop a link please).

As for this space, we can keep digging into the simulacrum... and the brain. 🙂 If everything is a simulacrum, how exactly do chemical molecules influence it? A little mushrooms, or peyote, or LSD, and suddenly syntax goes out the window at 3 PM. 😁 It might become something entirely different, among other things... (and what exactly happens to jouissance in that moment? 😂)

Agreed on the topic. Simulation—as the third stage of the simulacra—is distinct because it doesn't bother copying reality. In the first two stages, the imaginary gets closer and closer to the real, but in the third, that distinction collapses. According to Baudrillard, the real and the imaginary implode into a sphere of hyperreality. For him, hyperreality is that which has always been reproduced... It’s a simulation that kills off any sense of reference. I find this theory crucial specifically when looking at female representation—how women are perceived today...

Regarding drugs, I think they're just stimulants. There are plenty of examples around us showing that we are perfectly capable of triggering those reactions ourselves—opening up dimensions that feel imaginarily taboo. Take a psychotic subject, for instance; a schizophrenic person might behave or feel exactly like someone on a trip. Severe psychosis is basically like a bad trip, except the person can't snap out of it just by stopping the drug. I remember an example from a character study book—some guy locked himself in a freezer all night and, predictably, froze to death; they found him the next morning. The catch was that the freezer wasn't even plugged in... His body essentially reacted to a fiction with full physical symptoms. Definitely interesting...

mistyscout2 said:Your philosophy subforum is officially open, and honestly, I couldn't be happier to jump in and start a thread there. It feels like the right move, especially since you've already shown yourself to be such a decent person to talk to—someone who actually knows their way around the subject and has a solid handle on their own side of the story. 🙂

Well, thanks for the invite. I always appreciate being called in, even if I do have a habit of struggling to fit into established structures—you definitely caught me off guard with this one.🙂.

Brandon Wright54 said:Agreed on the topic. Simulation—as the third stage of the simulacra—is distinct because it doesn't bother copying reality. In the first two stages, the imaginary gets closer and closer to the real, but in the third, that distinction collapses. According to Baudrillard, the real and the imaginary implode into a sphere of hyperreality. For him, hyperreality is that which has always been reproduced... It’s a simulation that kills off any sense of reference. I find this theory crucial specifically when looking at female representation—how women are perceived today...

Regarding drugs, I think they're just stimulants. There are plenty of examples around us showing that we are perfectly capable of triggering those reactions ourselves—opening up dimensions that feel imaginarily taboo. Take a psychotic subject, for instance; a schizophrenic person might behave or feel exactly like someone on a trip. Severe psychosis is basically like a bad trip, except the person can't snap out of it just by stopping the drug. I remember an example from a character study book—some guy locked himself in a freezer all night and, predictably, froze to death; they found him the next morning. The catch was that the freezer wasn't even plugged in... His body essentially reacted to a fiction with full physical symptoms. Definitely interesting...

It’s a similar deal when you're watching something versus just visualizing it in your head. You're activating those same brain centers.

Here’s another wild example of how powerful—almost hypnotic—suggestion can be:

There was this case where a man was under hypnosis, and as the hypnotist fed him different suggestions, one of them was "you have a cigarette burn on your hand now" (or at least he believed he did, which is what really matters). Suddenly, actual blisters started appearing on his skin, just as if someone had actually stubbed out a lit cigarette on him. The brain just took that information as gospel and sent the signal down to the skin to react accordingly... You really shouldn't underestimate the intelligence of our bodies and our cells...

Jacob Newman77 said:Here’s the book: http://avaxsearch.com/avaxhome_searc...ther&commit=Go

Honestly, though, Fink’s version is much better: http://avaxhome.ws/ebooks/science_bo...icalintro.html

(By the way, there's a ton of great stuff on this site)

So, I'm currently working my way through Žižek's book—specifically the section about reading together—and I wanted to pick your brain, autoicon: he mentions that Lacan claimed if a patient knows for a fact his wife is cheating on him, and he's feeling jealous, he shouldn't actually be "treated" for that jealousy. What's your take? Personally, I find that perspective pretty compelling, so it was a pleasant surprise to see someone like Lacan align with my own thinking 🙂. Of course, I'm not just swallowing this whole without question; I need to dig deeper into the reasoning behind it since the book only offers that single sentence and leaves it at that... autoicon, feel free to spin this off into its own thread 😉.

thanks for the booklet, we've got plenty to read now👍. I haven't gotten to Žižek's "on violence" 😢 yet, so it's hard to comment much—it's always tricky to pull things out of context with him. From what I know of his style, he's always throwing in these random examples to illustrate points that seem totally disconnected from the actual story. I can only weigh in on that whole possessiveness issue from my own perspective. It feels like it ties back to that symbiosis where you just can't peel yourself away from a partner—that connection is always rooted in the psychological. I think anyone is capable of sensing they're being cheated on; the real problem hits when it becomes public knowledge—when everyone else knows (even if the person subconsciously knew all along). To me, it seems like connecting that to the illusion of freedom we live in—where an open admission of infidelity shatters that illusion—is key. I think even Žižek wrote about how much we enjoy living within those prohibitions, all while clinging to that illusion of freedom...

Brandon Wright54 said:Agreed on the topic. Simulation—as the third stage of the simulacra—is distinct because it doesn't bother copying reality. In the first two stages, the imaginary gets closer and closer to the real, but in the third, that distinction collapses. According to Baudrillard, the real and the imaginary implode into a sphere of hyperreality. For him, hyperreality is that which has always been reproduced... It’s a simulation that kills off any sense of reference. I find this theory crucial specifically when looking at female representation—how women are perceived today...

Regarding drugs, I think they're just stimulants. There are plenty of examples around us showing that we are perfectly capable of triggering those reactions ourselves—opening up dimensions that feel imaginarily taboo. Take a psychotic subject, for instance; a schizophrenic person might behave or feel exactly like someone on a trip. Severe psychosis is basically like a bad trip, except the person can't snap out of it just by stopping the drug. I remember an example from a character study book—some guy locked himself in a freezer all night and, predictably, froze to death; they found him the next morning. The catch was that the freezer wasn't even plugged in... His body essentially reacted to a fiction with full physical symptoms. Definitely interesting...

So, let's just assume for a second that REALITY actually exists 😉. Just because it slips through the cracks of symbolization (which is how Lacan puts it) doesn't mean it isn't out there somewhere... Don't you think?

Brandon Wright54 said:Agreed on the topic. Simulation—as the third stage of the simulacra—is distinct because it doesn't bother copying reality. In the first two stages, the imaginary gets closer and closer to the real, but in the third, that distinction collapses. According to Baudrillard, the real and the imaginary implode into a sphere of hyperreality. For him, hyperreality is that which has always been reproduced... It’s a simulation that kills off any sense of reference. I find this theory crucial specifically when looking at female representation—how women are perceived today...

Regarding drugs, I think they're just stimulants. There are plenty of examples around us showing that we are perfectly capable of triggering those reactions ourselves—opening up dimensions that feel imaginarily taboo. Take a psychotic subject, for instance; a schizophrenic person might behave or feel exactly like someone on a trip. Severe psychosis is basically like a bad trip, except the person can't snap out of it just by stopping the drug. I remember an example from a character study book—some guy locked himself in a freezer all night and, predictably, froze to death; they found him the next morning. The catch was that the freezer wasn't even plugged in... His body essentially reacted to a fiction with full physical symptoms. Definitely interesting...

From what I've gathered through my somewhat superficial readings of Baudrillard over the years, hyperreality works by placing such an intense emphasis on one specific aspect of what's being represented that it effectively kills the essence of the thing itself. Take, for example, extreme adult films where the camera focuses so obsessively on certain physical acts that all sense of actual sexuality or eroticism just vanishes into thin air.

I've always found that idea—the notion that "Disneyland exists to hide the fact that the entire USA is essentially Disneyland," if I can paraphrase it like that—to be pretty fascinating. 🙂

mistyscout2 said:It’s a similar deal when you're watching something versus just visualizing it in your head. You're activating those same brain centers.

Here’s another wild example of how powerful—almost hypnotic—suggestion can be:

There was this case where a man was under hypnosis, and as the hypnotist fed him different suggestions, one of them was "you have a cigarette burn on your hand now" (or at least he believed he did, which is what really matters). Suddenly, actual blisters started appearing on his skin, just as if someone had actually stubbed out a lit cigarette on him. The brain just took that information as gospel and sent the signal down to the skin to react accordingly... You really shouldn't underestimate the intelligence of our bodies and our cells...

Definitely not. I remember a situation where a kid almost got run over by a car. The mother was in such a state—pure adrenaline and stress—that she actually lifted the entire vehicle to pull her child out...

Here is another one for you guys:

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jacques Lacan: Psychoanalysis and the Subject of Literature

I actually went out and grabbed a physical copy of this one. It hasn’t been translated into American English—and honestly, it probably never will be, which isn't even really a tragedy or anything, just a reality of the publishing world, though I suppose not in a Lacanian sense 😁.

EDIT:
Just a heads-up, though—this book focuses pretty heavily on applying Lacanian theory specifically to literary criticism. It uses a handful of essays to break down works ranging from Antigone to Poe's "The Purloined Letter" and even Hamlet. So, if you're looking for something more rooted in pure psychoanalysis, clinical practice, or ontology, this might not quite be what you're after.

Brandon Wright54 said:Definitely not. I remember a situation where a kid almost got run over by a car. The mother was in such a state—pure adrenaline and stress—that she actually lifted the entire vehicle to pull her child out...

It's that surge of adrenaline that our biology specifically designed us for.

There are so many similar stories out there, and when that adrenaline really kicks in—especially during those split-second, life-or-death moments—people can do things that seem impossible, like ripping open heavy doors, overpowering someone much stronger than them, or running faster than they ever thought they could. It’s honestly pretty incredible and fascinating stuff to think about...

mistyscout2 said:So, let's just assume for a second that REALITY actually exists 😉. Just because it slips through the cracks of symbolization (which is how Lacan puts it) doesn't mean it isn't out there somewhere... Don't you think?

From what I've gathered through my somewhat superficial readings of Baudrillard over the years, hyperreality works by placing such an intense emphasis on one specific aspect of what's being represented that it effectively kills the essence of the thing itself. Take, for example, extreme adult films where the camera focuses so obsessively on certain physical acts that all sense of actual sexuality or eroticism just vanishes into thin air.

I've always found that idea—the notion that "Disneyland exists to hide the fact that the entire USA is essentially Disneyland," if I can paraphrase it like that—to be pretty fascinating. 🙂

I agree, though the issue lies in how we define "reality"—because in Lacan's framework, it definitely isn't used in the conventional sense.

You hit the nail on the head, and that's how I see it too. In a simulation, the line between the representation and the original disappears. Once that distinction is gone, representation loses its entire purpose—which is exactly why hyperreality calls into question the gap between the real and the imaginary.

mistyscout2 said:Here is another one for you guys:

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jacques Lacan: Psychoanalysis and the Subject of Literature

I actually went out and grabbed a physical copy of this one. It hasn’t been translated into American English—and honestly, it probably never will be, which isn't even really a tragedy or anything, just a reality of the publishing world, though I suppose not in a Lacanian sense 😁.

EDIT:
Just a heads-up, though—this book focuses pretty heavily on applying Lacanian theory specifically to literary criticism. It uses a handful of essays to break down works ranging from Antigone to Poe's "The Purloined Letter" and even Hamlet. So, if you're looking for something more rooted in pure psychoanalysis, clinical practice, or ontology, this might not quite be what you're after.

With this post, you’re definitely backing up that hyperreality theory. Things happen before the event itself even occurs 😁

Brandon Wright54 said:I agree, though the issue lies in how we define "reality"—because in Lacan's framework, it definitely isn't used in the conventional sense.

You hit the nail on the head, and that's how I see it too. In a simulation, the line between the representation and the original disappears. Once that distinction is gone, representation loses its entire purpose—which is exactly why hyperreality calls into question the gap between the real and the imaginary.

Yeah, like I was saying earlier, when you look at Lacan, the Real is basically this ontological register that just refuses to be captured by symbolism.

Brandon Wright54 said:I agree, though the issue lies in how we define "reality"—because in Lacan's framework, it definitely isn't used in the conventional sense.

You hit the nail on the head, and that's how I see it too. In a simulation, the line between the representation and the original disappears. Once that distinction is gone, representation loses its entire purpose—which is exactly why hyperreality calls into question the gap between the real and the imaginary.

I feel like I probably need to remind you that Walter Benjamin was actually onto this back in 1936, when he penned his famous essay, *The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility*. He spends quite a bit of time discussing how an artwork loses its "aura" once it can be reproduced like that.

You’re definitely on the right track with that distinction, though if you don't mind me jumping in to add a little nuance, I think there's an extra layer we should peel back here. The reason representation loses its "meaning" is because it stops being a direct re-presentation of something as it actually exists; instead, it becomes a representation of a representation. We can never truly get back to that original essence—assuming such a thing even existed to begin with—because we're just caught in this endless loop of representations representing other representations. At the same time, the Real (with a capital R) remains constant regardless of how we perceive it. The real issue is that our own personal fictions, along with the collective fictions of society acting as a mass unit (which essentially manifest the Imaginary through various ideologies and meta-narratives), start to feel incredibly real to us. People mistake these constructs for something "natural" or "just common sense," seemingly unaware that they aren't actually perceiving the world itself, but rather their own conceptualization of it. That's really where philosophy begins, and where simple "common sense" ends. 😉

Brandon Wright54 said:With this post, you’re definitely backing up that hyperreality theory. Things happen before the event itself even occurs 😁

Wait, which part of the post are you referring to? And what exactly do you mean by that in this specific context? 😉

Reading through Baudrillard, I can't help but feel like he’s circling back to good old Plato and his whole concept of the "world of ideas." It’s like we have that primary realm, then the "real world" which acts as just a shadow of those ideals, and then "art" itself becomes a mere shadow of the "real world"—essentially a shadow of a shadow.

It seems to me that after the fallout of the late sixties—which didn't quite hit the mark, at least not in the way the left-wing intellectuals of that era had envisioned—and his eventual break from Marxism, Baudrillard morphed into something of a modern Platonist. He’s got this heavy influence from (post)structuralism and Nietzsche, all seasoned with a healthy dose of McLuhan.

The whole idea of the "hyperreal" feels so much like McLuhan’s theory about the "sensory overload" that eventually leads us straight into a state of "narcosis." It really brings home the truth behind Narcissus is Narcosis.

mistyscout2 said:Wait, which part of the post are you referring to? And what exactly do you mean by that in this specific context? 😉

Honestly, I can't even remember anymore. Lesson learned for next time—after a few drinks, it’s definitely best to skip the "philosophy" sessions. 🙂