Review: Discourses of Impossibility: Can Psychoanalysis Be Political?

Author(s): Elizabeth J. Bellamy

Source: Diacritics, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Spring, 1993), pp. 23-38
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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DISCOURSES OF
IMPOSSIBILITY:
CAN
BE

PSYCHOANALYSIS
POLITICAL?

ELIZABETHJ. BELLAMY
Jean-Joseph Goux. SYMBOLIC ECONOMIES:AFTER MARX AND FREUD.
Trans. Jennifer Curtiss Gage. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1990.

Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. HEGEMONYAND SOCIALISTSTRATEGY:

TOWARDSA RADICAL DEMOCRATICPOLITICS.London: Verso, 1985.
Slavoj Zizek. THE SUBLIME OBJECTOF IDEOLOGY. London: Verso, 1989.
"Thehistoryof psychoanalysisis not finished,"writes CorneliusCastoriadis,"although
it is possible thatit may finish sooner thanwe think"[103]. Or should we insteadheed
the warningof JeanLaplanche:"Reportsof the demise of psychoanalysisaremerelythe
obverse of an unquenchablethirstfor novelties at any cost. Psychoanalysisis expected
to be a constantsource ... of new thrills"[2]. Pace Castoriadis,psychoanalysisis not
likely to die out "soonerthanwe think,"but it is my contentionthatpsychoanalysismust
abandonits compulsion, to echo Laplanche,to be a "constantsource of new thrills"in
favor of more subtle mediations of the intersectionbetween psyche and history. Put
anotherway, it is time, now that Lacan (as its most recent"strongfather")is gone, for
psychoanalysis to utilize what it has learned about the intersubjectivenature of the
Lacanianunconscious and consider its relationshipto the sociopolitical.1
One could arguethatit is still to be determinedwhetherthe Lacanian"moment"has
been liberating or restrictive for psychoanalysis. At the very least, the spectacular
phenomenonof Lacanianismhasdemonstratedthattheestablishingof "cult"leaders(and
its syndrome of discipleship and Oedipal filiations) continues to be the characteristic
repetitioncompulsionof psychoanalysis,what Fran:oisRoustang,in Dire Mastery,has
summarizedas a destin si funeste. It may be time for psychoanalysisto abandonits
allegianceto "theauthorityof the master,"a move whose consequenceswould also entail
the relinquishing of its endless fascination with and theorizing of the concept of
transference(which never seems very far removedfrom the questionof "mastery")and

I wish to thankDominickLaCapraandArtemisLeontisfor theirvaluablecommentson this essay.

Politics:Freud'sFrenchRevolution
1. SherryTurkle'sPsychoanalytic
providesa historyof
the commitmentof psychoanalysis to formulate a "psychoanalyticideology," specifically the
impulses behind the May 1968 revolutionarymovementin France, which, in its best moments,
sought to theorizethe way in which the subject is interpellatedinto a Lacanian Symbolic. But, as
Turklepoints out, this attemptfailed as the French radical left's appropriationof Lacanian
discourse became stiflingly de rigueur, and the socially revolutionarypotential of the "French
Freud" movementdegenerated into mere "radical chic" [87].

24

diacritics 23.1: 24-38

I?
:i

:i-i

of a clinical treatmentthatfails to considerthe analysand'sintersectionwith not only the

analystbut historyitself.2
But how can psychoanalysisenter into a meaningfulexchange with politics? How
we
can forge a dynamicandprovocativereciprocitybetweenpsychoanalysisandpolitics
thatwould also respectthe dualautonomiesof the "psychic"andthe "political"?I would
arguethatthe majorobstacle to articulatingthe relationshipbetweenpsychoanalysisand
politics is, ironically,the inherentlypsychoanalyticconcept of transference,what Freud
describedas that"universalphenomenonof the humanmind"[80]-the very concept in
which psychoanalysisitself is so thoroughlyimplicated. In Freud'sconception,transference is a process of "actingout"as a kind of extended repetitioncompulsionthatresists
a salutary"workingthrough."Thus,in orderfor psychoanalysisto enterintoa meaningful
exchange with politics, or vice versa, what must occur is a disavowal of transference,
wherebyone discourseor the otherends up dominatinganddemandingallegianceto "the
authorityof the master."3 If this transferenceis not disavowed, a "psychoanalytic
politics," or a "political psychoanalysis," will fail to be a dynamic articulation,or
"workingthrough,"of two disparatediscourses,but ratherwill become an unexamined
"actingout" of psychoanalysiswithin politics.
In recent years, there have been encouragingsigns of an increasingwillingness to
renew the relevanceof psychoanalysisfor ideology critique. In particular,Jean-Joseph
Goux, Slavoj Zizek, and Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe all deserve credit for
attempting,to one degreeor another,to contextualizepsychoanalysiswithinthe ideological. In this essay I wish to examine the difficulties these otherwise ambitious
contextualizationshave encounteredin their attemptsto conceive of a psychoanalytic
politics andto reflecton what moreneeds to be done. I wish to emphasizefromthe outset
thatmy critiqueof these authorsis motivatednot so much by what they argueas by what
they don't argue:that is, they neglect to articulateprecisely what the irreducibilityof
psychoanalysisfor ideology critiqueis. Despite the brillianceof these works, in the final
analysis all threebeg the questionof why we need psychoanalysisfor ideology critique:
what, in otherwords, does psychoanalysisadd thatgives us a betterunderstandingof the
operationsof ideology andpolitics? To repeatmy earlierclaim, theresultof this question
begging constitutes an "acting out" (that is, a superficial forging of psychoanalytic
analogies), insteadof a "workingthrough"to genuine (psycho-)politicalsolutions.
In order for psychoanalysis to become a truly sociopolitical discourse, it must
"remember"its (often repressed) history in the FrankfurtSchool's commitment to
historicizingpsychoanalysisthrougha nuancingof the enigmaticlinks among neurosis,
culture, and history. One of the more recent attemptsat the elusive synthesis between
Marx and Freud is Jean-JosephGoux's Symbolic Economies, a brilliantsynthesis of
psyche and socioeconomy that nonetheless does not take on the task of offering a truly
2. As Castoriadishas observed,surelyoneof themoreperverseeffectsof Lacanianism
has
beenthe recentattentiondevotedto a theorizingof the "desireof the analyst"as a new and
discourse-an indicationthatpsychoanalysis
important
focus of psychoanalytic
maysimplybe
the
time
to
its "fataldestiny"tofetishizethe"master
": "Formany
uninclined,
for
being, relinquish
yearsnow,Francehas beenfull of chataboutthe 'desireof theanalyst.'Butaboutthe 'desireof
the analyst'nobodycares"[84]. In their introductionto a recentcollectionof essays on
RichardFeldsteinandHenrySussmancallfor a kindof "post-psychoanalysis,"
psychoanalysis,
a kindof "hybrid
themirrorof
formofpsychoanalysis
[that]couldbecomedecontextualizedfrom
clinicalrelationsthathascustomarily
supportedits claims"[1].
3. For the definitivediscussionof how transferenceoperateswithinthe disciplineof
(thatis, howhistorianstransferontothepast andhowhistoryseeksto disavow
historiography
" I am indebtedto
see DominickLaCapra's essay "HistoryandPsychoanalysis.
transference),
a psychoanalytic
LaCaprafor my analysisof how transferenceis an obstaclein constituting
politics.
diacritics / spring 1993

25

politicalagenda. The reasonsfor thisshortcomingareworthexaminingin some detailfor

their illuminationof the difficulties of formulatinga genuinely psychoanalyticpolitics.
Goux's concept of "theoreticalnumismatics" is an attempt to forge analogies
between Marx and Freudthroughan articulationof the genesis of value form. Marx
declaredthatin a bourgeoiseconomy, a commoditycannotestablishits own value;rather
this value can be established(thatis, structured)only througha transcendental"general
equivalent"(thatis, gold as an absolutecommodity). In otherwords, the exchangevalue
of a capitalistcommodityis a nonempirical,purelytranscendentprocessof signification.
We can at this point discern the influence on Goux of a Lacanian discourse of
"phallocentrism": like (the concept of) gold, the "dead"(murdered)father is also a
transcendentsymbol of a "purelysyntactic moment"thatcreatesthe generalequivalent
as the "sign of signs," the "necessaryexclusion from the relativeformof value"[18]. In
this structuralist/"phallocentric"
scheme, Goux depicts a Marxist conception of the
operationsof bourgeois economy as a more properly"psychic"economy, wherein the
generalequivalentof exchangevalue may be viewed as a "paternalmetaphor,"a totemic
"fulcrumof all symbolic legislation" [21]. Even as gold transcendsits status as mere
commodity,so also is the phallusnot merely an objetpetit a, but is rather"theunit(y)for
all objects of drive" [22], the symbolic organizationof the polymorphouslibido of
infantilesexuality. Thus,Goux's "theoreticalnumismatics"establishesa strictlyisomorphic relationshipbetweenthephallicandmonetaryfunctionssuchthat,forbothfunctions,
an immediate,libidinal"investment"in an object gets repressed-or "metaphorized"by a mystifying symbolic legislation.
Moregenerally,then,for Gouxthe structureof thepsyche is itself composedof layers
of past socioeconomic formationswhereby"neurosis"is to be perceivedas the symptom
of a repressedhistoricalperiod. These socioeconomic formationsat one time actualized
their own mode of signifying, but, in Goux's quasi-Lamarckianconception of the
unconscious,the currentmode of productionhas supplantedand,indeed,repressedthese
"tracesof historicallyoutdatedsymbolizations"[75]. These outdatedsymbolizationsare
"inscribed" in the dominant structure-"inscribed," that is to say, by their very
"nonrepresentation"
by the dominantstructure. The psychic apparatusis a symbolic
like
the
legislation that,
genesis of value form itself, is structuredon repression-or on
"the distance between nonlinguistic forms of consciousness and linguistic forms of
consciousness" [76]. Thus the ontogenesis of an individualpsyche is constitutedout of
the phylogenesisof the historyof modes of productionandtheirexchangeof signs-with
neurosisitself, then,beingseen as a kindof "reminiscence"of theserepressedstages. And
now we get to the heart of the matterfor Goux: the analogies between neurosis and
ideology as demonstrating"thesamesignifying syndrome,thesamesymboliclogic" [80].
Goux arguesthat"[t]heneuroticsubject,like the ideological subject,is constitutedby the
place it occupies in one of themodesof theprocessof symbolization"[81]. Theoperations
of ideology resemblethoseof neurosisinsofaras thedominantideology is itself structured
on neurosis as the effect of a repressed(and more "affective")mode of productionand
exchange. Ideology, then, functionsas outmoded(repressed)"syndromes"of signification-metaphors whose symbolic (or metaphoric)legislation is dependenton the occulting of earliersignifiers. (It is in this sense, then, thatGoux arguesthat"[t]hereis no true
symbolism that is not cryptophoric"[124].)
But how inherentlypsychic are the occulting operationsof Goux's socioeconomy?
For Goux, the determinationof exchange value is always already an imaginary,or
psychic, process; and the signifying structureof ideology, the big "0" Other,is always
the structureof the Law-of gold as the Law of economy, or of the Name-of-the-Father
as the law of the symbolic. But this Law is the structurationnot of "real"content,but of
purelyrepresentationalcontent. AlthoughGoux arguesconvincinglythatthe genesis of
value form and previousmodes of productionhave become repressed,his "repression"
seems less a genuinelypsychicprocessthana syntacticprocessthat"signifies,"paradoxi26

cally, by means of its own nonrepresentabilitywithin currentmodes of production.

Goux's conceptionof ideology as a phallocentricprocess of significationis, as we have
seen, indebtedto the Lacanianphallus,which, as the signifierof its own lack, is the place
where loss is inscribedas a positive existence. But the intellectualline of transmission
here may be not so much the LacanianName-of-the-Fatheras the Hegelian "negationof
the negation"wherebynegativityalways has a positive, structuringfunction. ForGoux,
the nonrepresentabilityof repression"represents"itself at the momentof its effacement
or negationwithin ideology (just as money attainsits exchangevalue as the negation,the
loss, the disappearanceof money), with such a process functioningmuch like Hegel's
contention that a signifying structureconstitutes itself out of a central void. For this
reason,then, Goux's analogies between a "conventional"neurosis,where the symptom
occursbecause of a repressedidea, anda morehistoricizedneurosis,where the symptom
occurs because of a repressedhistoricalperiod,are as elegant as they are removedfrom
real psychic operations. The precise problem here is that for Goux, it is almost as if
repressioncould be recoveredsemioticallyby "reading"the vestigial layers of forgotten
signifying formations.
One suspects thatGoux's distinctly "semiotic"as opposed to "psychic"repression
may owe its most profound intellectual debt not to Lacanianpsychoanalysis but to a
Hegeliandiscourseof negation,where signification(in thiscase, repression)"originates"
in a centralvoid. Goux's analogiesbetweenthe generalequivalentof exchangevalue and
of phallic signification,and between neurosis and ideology as "signifyingsyndromes,"
are just that-analogies between types of libidinal "investments,"isomorphs heavily
informed by Hegel and an emphasis on the genesis of signification as relational.
Furthermore,we couldarguethatif Goux's "repression"is notinherentlypsychic, neither
is his "ideology"inherentlysociopolitical. In a post-Marxistcritique,Goux's reification
of the economic as a determinantmode of productioninsists on a separationof economy
from the conditionsof its own existence and begs the questionof just how determinant
capitalis. Inthefinalanalysis,becauseGouxconceptualizesrepressionas a metaphorization
of the "sign of signs" (that is, gold or the phallus), his in-every-other-respectambitious
synthesis of Marx and Freud never advances the unconscious beyond processes of
signification to more materialistconcerns. Pinpointingthe intellectual difficulties of
forging a true synthesis between psychoanalysis and Marxism,FredricJamesonwarns
that what such an articulationmust avoid is "ideological ion-exchanges, in which a
molecular element of one system is temporarily lent to the other for purposes of
stabilization"[386]. In Goux's conception,gold (as the generalequivalentof exchange
value) andthe phallus(as the repressionof the "signof signs")lend theirmutualsupport,
or "ion-exchange,"to one another's"syndromes"of significationto stabilizethe concept
of an "ideologicalneurosis." But, in the midst of these isomorphs,what we are left with
is a nonmaterialist,merely "signifying"economy and an unconsciousstructuredon the
occulting of these economic "signifiers." Goux has not so muchhistoricizedneurosisas
metaphorizedit, encompassingit into an elegantbutquasi-linguisticsystem of structural
semiosis.
More to the point for the formulation of a genuinely psychoanalytic politics,
however,is the consequencethatin Goux's synthesisof MarxandFreud,the unconscious
remains distancedfrom the ideological. A psychoanalyticpolitics will have to go far
beyond a mere rapprochementwith the economic; it may be time to go beyond, for
example, a theorizing of the commodity fetish as a kind of capitalistjouissance, or
ongoing refinementsof the FrankfurtSchool's largely outdatedprojectof studyingthe
"consciousness"industryandthe fate of the subjectunderlatecapitalism.4A psychoana4. In thiscontext,one thinks,for example,ofDeleuzeandGuattari'sconceptof "schizoanalysis"
and theirpostmodernlinkages of economics (or of modes of production)and the unconsciousfor
a new kindof "libidinalpolitics." As the new gurus of an "antipsychiatry,"Deleuze and Guattari

diacritics / spring 1993

27

lytic politics, in otherwords, will have to respectthe autonomyof thepolitical, while at

the same time maintainingits identity as inherentlypsychoanalytic.
We could argue that a psychoanalyticpolitics could originatewithin a project of
providing historical materialism with, specifically, a theory of subjectivity and the
unconscious. Because psychoanalysis needs "subjects"as the sine qua non of its
discourse, it attractedthe attention of Althusser, whose concept of ideology, greatly
influencedby Lacanin particular,also needs "subjects"to function.5And at this point it
is perhaps inevitable that we evaluate the Althusserianproject and its affinities with
psychoanalysis as a possible foundationfor a psychoanalyticpolitics. Only througha
review and reconsiderationof Althussercan we fully understandboth the successes and
the limitationsof Zizek's "going beyond"Althusserfor his version of a psychoanalytic
politics.
ForAlthusser,ideology is not simply a kindof Marxist"falseconsciousness,"but is
synonymouswith the "lived"experience of humanexistence itself. More to the point,
Althusserianideology is, in some sense, fundamentallypsychoanalytic(orfundamentally
Lacanian)in its insistence on the primacy of imaginaryrepresentation. In his essay
"Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,"Althusser defines ideology as "the
imaginaryrelationshipof individualsto the realconditionsin which they live" [165]. As
the coefficient that produces imaginaryrepresentationsof the individual's relation to
these real conditions, ideology serves to distortand conceal the social contradictionsof
oppression. Althusser's ideology is analogousto "lived"experience,then, insofaras its
inversionof personaland materialcauses through(self-)representationsis what constitutes individualsas (obedient,freely subjected)subjects. Ideology supplies the subject
with satisfying, unified images of selfhood that idealize the subject's conditions of
existence and make these images appearnatural,unmediated,and direct.
What is importantto emphasizehere is thatthe constitutivecategoryof ideology is
the "subject." Quite simply, Althusserianideology functions(like psychoanalysis?)by
"constitutingconcrete subjects as subjects" ["ISA" 173]. The consequences for a
psychoanalyticpolitics, then,is thatthe subjectbecomesa subjectthroughits relationship
to ideology: " ... thereis no ideology except for concretesubjects,and this destination
for ideology is only madepossible by the subject;meaning,by the categoryof the subject
and its functioning" ["ISA" 160]. Specifically, the "subject"is born as a process of
"recognition." Ideology "interpellates"individuals as (grammatical/legal/juridical)
subjects,who then "recognize"the existing state of affairs,thus insuringthe continuous
operations of ideology. For Althusser, recognition takes the form of "ideological
recognition,"which guarantees that subjects "work all by themselves" ["ISA" 183]
withoutconsciousness of theirposition. As Althusserargues,"Onethinksin it [ideological discourse]ratherthanof it" [RC25]. Thus Althusserianideology is not conscious of
hypostasize the schizophrenic as the embodimentof a desire (of a "desiring machine")-a
polymorphouslibidinal energy whosefragmentationsare perpetuallysubversiveto the totalizing
urges andcodes of capitalism. Thus,Deleuze and Guattari's essentializationof bothschizophrenia
(althoughan admittedly"fragmented"schizophrenia)and desire poses a confrontationbetween
the psyche and a vastly oversimplified, "totalizing" capitalism that still persists in leaving
psychoanalysis as a kind of "masterdiscourse" called upon to explain the intersectionof psyche
and history. (For a nevertheless thoughtfulaccount of "schizoanalysis" as a subversion of
capitalistcodes, see Eugene W.Holland's "Schizoanalysis:ThePostmodernContextualizationof
Psychoanalysis." For a useful account of psychoanalysis and its complicitywith the ethics of
capitalism,see Michael Schneider'schapter "PsychoanalyticalTheoryandBourgeoisIdeology,"

in his NeurosisandCivilization:
A Marxist/Freudian
Synthesis.)

5. For an excellentaccountofLacan's influenceonAlthusser'stheoryof subjectivity,see Paul

Smith,Discerningthe Subject[18-21]. For an accountofAlthusser'srejectionofLacan late in his
career, see WarrenMontag, "Freud,Althusser,Lacan."

28

itself. In an Althusserianscheme, subjects are always "addressees"of particularsocial

formationsand, hence, productsof intersubjectiverelationships. When, as Althusser
illustrates,the "police" (or any other discursive formation) utters, "Hey, you there!"
["ISA" 174], the "subject"is born at this precise moment in a process of (imaginary)
"recognition."
We might consider, however, the extent to which Althusser has misappropriated
Lacan's accountof the operationsof imaginaryrepresentation.Lacanwould arguethat
it is the impossibilityof the subject's self-representationthatbecomes "possible"only in
ideology. For Lacan,the subjectis formednot simply as a process of "recognition,"but
ratheras a process of alienation. A Lacanianaxiom that is pertinentfor a critiqueof
Althusserian "recognition" is that recognition cannot itself be "recognized." For
Althusser,the subject is bornwhen it "recognizes"its hailing of "Hey, you there!" But
Lacanwould depictthis ideological processof "recognition"as the subject'swishing the
Otherto recognize him/her. The linguistic hailing "Hey, you there!,"more thansimply
the ideological addressingof the subject,might be the point at which ideology serves as
an illustrationof Lacan's axiom that"theunconscious is the discourseof the Other."If,
for Althusser,the response to the address"Hey, you there!"is the subject's searchfor
plenitude(the willingness to see oneself as an "addressee"),Lacanwould be compelled
to characterizethis process as a fundamentallyunconsciousone. The structurationof the
Althusseriansubject through "recognition,"the process by which the subject always
seeks to recognize something,is for Lacana process not so much of "recognition"as of
meconnaissance-or the process of (mis)recognizingthe Other'sdesire as the subject's
own. The "interpellated"subject becomes constituted as a plenitudinous,freely "addressed"subject only by a process of suturing-of a disavowal of its alienationin the
Other.
If, for Althusser, the subject is always the (belated) effect of the expectationsof
ideology, for Lacan the temporalvalence of this belatednessis the very essence of the
subject's (de)formation. In otherwords, the temporalillogic of "belatedness"becomes
the very essence of thepsychic-structuring an unconsciousin ways thatAlthusserfailed
to perceive.6 ForLacan,recognitionis always a metalepticprocessof re-cognition. The
goal of plenitude(of seeing oneself as an "addressee")is constitutedwithinthe alienating
temporalityof thefutureanterior.This momentof alienationis, of course,Lacan'selusive
"retroversioneffect,"wherein"[t]hesubjectis this emergence[surgissement]which,just
before, as subject, was nothing, but which, having scarcely appeared,solidifies into a
signifier" [FFC 199].
The Lacanianunconsciouscomes intobeing at the momentof the subject'saphanisis
(or "fading"),the momentatwhich the subjectfirstmakesits appearancein theOther.For
Lacan, the subject is never fully and successfully interpellatedbecause accession to
subjecthoodcan only occur somewherein the obscurethresholdof what Lacanrefersto
as the vel, a point of alienation-a "neither one, nor the other"-a shady area of
"nonmeaning"that constitutesthe disappearanceof the subject [FFC 210]. As Lacan
argues in anothercontext, "[t]he notation$ expresses the necessity thatS be eclipsed at
6. Althusser'sfailuretoperceive the implicationsof belatednessand its role in theretroactive
formationof an unconsciousprovides a contextforafurtherunderstandingof Paul Hirst's critique
of theAlthusserian "subject"as hopelessly circular: "Theconcrete individualis 'abstract,'it is
not yet the subject it will be. It is, however, already a subject in the sense of the subject which
supportstheprocess of recognition. Thussomethingwhich is not a subjectmustalready have the
faculties necessary to support the recognition which will constitute it as a subject" [65]. One
implication of Hirst's critique is that, as John Higgins argues, "Althusser'ssubject is a subject
without an unconscious" [116]. Althusserianrepression is simply a "successfuland complete
repression, inauguratinga homogeneousand unbrokenprocess of interpellation." In Higgins's
estimation,Althusserianinterpellationis, in thefinal analysis, an oddly "eternalprocess"[116].

diacritics / spring 1993

29

the precise point where the object a attainsits greatestvalue" ["Desire"290]. Because
of this "eclipsing"effect, the subjectcan neversee itself as it reallyis. Inotherwords,for
Lacanthe "subject"can only ever be the (psychic) failureof its own self-representation.
At the point of an Althusserianideology's utteranceof the interpellating"Hey, you
there!,"the Lacaniansubject, strugglingwith the "nonmeaning"of its own failed selfrepresentation,feels compelledto counterwith the demand,"Chevuoi?"-the "Whatdo
you really want?" that signifies the wake of the subject's "nonmeaning"within the
Symbolic network.
We can at this point turn to Slavoj Zizek's recent study, The Sublime Object of
Ideology, which is, among other things, an extended meditationon Lacan's concept of
(mis)recognition and the psychic and ideological consequences that accrue "beyond
interpellation." Specifically, Zizek analyzes the "Che vuoi?" as a moment of "failed
interpellation":
Althusserspeaksonlyof theprocess of ideological interpellationthroughwhich
the symbolicmachineof ideology is "internalized"into the ideological experience of Meaning and Truth: but . .. this "internalization,"by structural
necessity, neverfully succeeds... there is always a residue,a leftover,a stain
of traumaticirrationalityand senselessness sticking to it. [43]
For Zizek, the "Chevuoi?" is a failed interpellationthatcan be defined as "a residue,a
leftover"-a kind of hystericalresponse to the enigmatic desire of the Other. It is this
"residueeffect" thatAlthusserfailed to perceive. If the hailingof the "Hey, you there!"
is the interpellatingpointde capiton thatseeks to pin ideological identificationsonto the
subject,then, for Zizek, the hysterical"Chevuoi?" is a signifierparexcellence, the sign
of the subject's failureto understandthatthe (Big "O")Othercannotprovidethe answer
because it is also barred(is always already0), markedby "a fundamentalimpossibility,
structuredaroundan impossible/traumatickernel, arounda centrallack" [122].
For Zizek, this "centrallack"is notjust the Lacanianmanquet etre thatmetaphorically (de)structuresthe subject, but is rathera real lack that demarcatesthe space of
ideology. The barred0 of the Symbolic is, in a word, "ideology"itself; the barred0
becomes the site of Zizek's attempt to politicize Lacan throughits equation with an
ideological "Real" that is unassimilable by the subject. In this regard, then, Zizek
succeeds not only in politicizing Lacan, but also in "psychoanalyzing"ideology by
arguingthatideology manifestsitself as the intractable"Real"thateludes symbolization
by the subject.
As was the case with Goux, however, just how inherentlyideological is Zizek's
ideology? In orderto answerthis question,let us turnto LaclauandMouffe'sHegemony
and Socialist Strategy,whose influence Zizek openly acknowledges,particularlytheir
concept of a "radicaldemocracy"as a model for his ideological "Real"as the traumatic
"kernel"eludingsymbolizationby the subject. Inrecentyears,LaclauandMouffe's work
has been regardedas a virtual blueprint for the disruptionsand discontinuities that
constitutea distinctlypostmodernsociety. In theirradicallyantiessentialistframework,
thereis no "suturedspace"characteristicof society since "thesocial itself hasno essence."
Because of a "growing proliferationof differences"within society (that is, the often
competingclaims of race, class, andgender, as well as such recentsocial movementsas
gay politics or ecological politics), there occurs what Laclau and Mouffe refer to as a
"surplusof meaningof 'thesocial'" [96]. Because of therelationalandconstantlyshifting
characterof every social identity,"society"as such is inherentlyincompleteand indeed,
in some sense, does notexist. Accordingly,for LaclauandMouffe,theirnow well-known
concept of antagonismbearswitness to "the impossibilityof a final suture,"to the limit

30

of the social. Antagonism becomes a kind of "floating signifier" that points to the
impossibilityof society to fully constitute itself.
We can now appreciate the extent to which Zizek's rapprochementbetween
psychoanalysisandideology is enabledthroughhis appropriationof LaclauandMouffe's
discourse of "impossibility." He reveals his debt to Laclau and Mouffe in his going
beyond Althusserto conceive of ideology not just as an imaginaryrepresentationbut as
an "illusion"that "masks some insupportable,real, impossible kernel"-in effect, an
escape fromsome "traumatic,realkernel"[45]. ForZizek, muchlike LaclauandMouffe,
the ideological is "a social realitywhose very existence implies the nonknowledgeof its
participantsas to its essence" [21]. Zizek's project,then, is to elucidatethe relevanceof
psychoanalysisforanideology which is definedas theimpossiblesite of"nonknowledge."
Turningthe(psychoanalytic)screwof interpretationon Althusser,Zizek mightarguethat
the self exists only on the conditionof the misrecognitionof ideology's effacing of the
traces of its own impossibility. In such a scheme, Zizek's primaryobject of interest
becomes the subject-within-ideologywho can "'enjoy his symptom' only in so far as its
logic escapes him"[21]. And, thus,ideology is now to be understoodas a symptom,with
both"ideology"andthe "symptom"(the symptomas the demand"Chevuoi?")being that
which is structuredon an impossible logic.
Zizek no doubtfinds Laclauand Mouffe's emphasison the concept of antagonism
as the "signifier"of an impossibilityso congenial because of his own interestin Lacan's
shift of emphasis during his career from the symbolic to the Real. For Zizek, the
"traumatic,realkernel"of ideology is the"placeopenedby symbolization/historicization:
the processof historicizationimpliesanemptyplace, a nonhistoricalkernelaroundwhich
the symbolic networkis articulated"[135]. Like society itself, Lacan'sparadoxicalReal,
as interpretedby Zizek, "cannotbe symbolized, althoughit is retroactivelyproducedby
the symbolizationitself' [135]. Fromthis point it is only a small step, then, for Zizek to
claim thatthe Real is a kindof structuralcausalitythatis directlyanalogousto Laclauand
Mouffe's concept of antagonism:"antagonismis precisely such an impossiblekernel,a
certain limit which is in itself nothing;it is only to be constitutedretroactively,from a
series of its effects, as the traumaticpoint which escapes them" [163]. For Zizek,
antagonism (like the ideological "symptom") is the Real, whose retroactiveeffects
accountfor the dislocations and distortionsthat rendthe symbolic order.
In sum, Zizek acknowledges Laclau and Mouffe for being the first to develop "the
logic of the Real" within culturalcritique. Taking his cues from their antiessentialist
axiom that"society does not exist,'Zizek is led to drawan analogybetween the concept
of antagonismas the never-fully-articulated,"floating"limit of every social identity,and
the Lacanian Real as an impossible, nonexistent (surplus) entity that nevertheless
producesany numberof traumaticeffects. In the final analysis,what we are left with is
not a genuinelypsychoanalyticpolitics, but rather,as was the case with Goux, a series of
elegantanalogies-in thiscase, betweenthe nonsymbolizabledimensionof Lacan'sReal
andLaclauandMouffe's antiessentialistantagonism.If in Goux's synthesisof Freudand
Marx ideology functions semiotically as the vestigial layers of forgotten signifying
formations(ideology as inherentlysymbolic), in Zizek's synthesis, ideology becomes
that which is inherently nonsymbolic (the "traumatic, real kernel" as the
nonsymbolizable)-a synthesis structuredon isomorphic "ion-exchanges"between a
LacanianReal and Laclau and Mouffe's axiom that"society does not exist."
Let us now returnto the question I posed earlier: how inherentlyideological is the
"impossiblelogic"of Zizek's conceptof ideology? At thispoint,I would suggestthatone
problemwith Zizek's conception of "ideology"as a kind of "floatingsignfier"(thatis,
as a "nonhistoricalkernel")is thatit is too removedfromanymaterialistspecificity. What
exactly are the consequencesof a psychoanalyticappropriationof Laclauand Mouffe's
axiom that"society does not exist"? What does it mean for a psychoanalyticpolitics to
diacritics / spring 1993

31

say thatsociety "is structuredaroundimpossibility"and"traversed"by antagonism?For

Zizek, the "surplusof meaning"that characterizessociety is to be interpretedas the
Real-or, more specifically, the Real as whateverresists symbolization. But I would
suggest that this nonsymbolizable Real is not necessarily pertinentto the "surplusof
meaning"that Laclauand Mouffe arguecharacterizesthe social. Forthem, what might
be even more importantto emphasize is thatsociety lacks an essence notjust because it
is an "impossible"surplus,but, more specifically, because it is "overdetermined"-an
argumentwith more materialist consequences. Even as Zizek seeks to go beyond
Althusserby reclaimingthe implicationsof the LacanianReal for a critiqueof ideology,
a significantpartof Laclauand Mouffe's agendais to express theirdisappointmentthat
Althusser's concept of overdetermination"tendedto disappearfrom Althusseriandiscourse" [98]. The value of the concept of overdeterminationfor an antiessentialist
politicaldiscourseis thatit becomes less consequentialto say thatsociety lacksanessence
thanto say thatsociety is overdetermined,thatis, thatsociety mustbe evaluatedin terms
of whatthey referto as the "precariousandrelationalcharacterof every identity"[99]. To
is to assert
say thatsociety is not a unifiedtotality,thatis, to say thatit is "overdetermined,"
is
and
it
is
this
I
would
thatsociety inconsistent;
highlycomplexinconsistencythat,
argue,
is not necessarily analogousto the LacanianReal. The questionhere is: how inherently
psychic is this inconsistency-this "surplus"of meaning that rendersthe concept of
"society"discontinuous?To say thatsociety is traversedby an antagonismthat"resists
symbolization"is notthesame as arguingthatthedifferentstrugglesandsubjectpositions
(albeitfragmentaryandindeterminate)thatmakeupthe discontinuitiesof the social field
of postmodernpolitics do not exist within some sort of historicalmateriality.
Society's "surplus-effect"means thatthe social has no readilydefinableontological
essence, but we mustpause to considercaretullyjust where psychoanalysiscan go from
here-especially if we choose to widen the discursivefield from a too-broadly-defined
concept of the "ideological"to the explicitly political. The social may have no essence,
but, put simply, therewill still always be politics. Laclauand Mouffe lamentthe fading
within Althusseriandiscourse because, as they define it,
away of "overdetermination"
overdeterminationas the"incomplete,open andpoliticallynegotiable"characterof every
socialidentity[104]is a usefulway inwhichwe canacknowledgethealmostpoststructuralist
indeterminacyof social meaning, while at the same time respectingthe materialityof
political struggle. Admittedly,within the political field identitiesare never fully fixed.
One way Laclauand Mouffe choose to describethe political is the fixing of thepoint de
capiton that attemptsto pin down society's "meaning"-but a point de capiton that is
always alreadyperceivedas only partiallyandonly momentarilyfixing meaningbefore
other"nodalpoints"of articulationeventuallyforce it into a redefinition.If we claim that
the inherentcontradictionsof a properlypoliticized"Real"arethatwhich resistsymbolizationwithinthesocial, andthatthe "political,"too, is thatwhichescapessymbolization,
then we must carefully assess the consequencesof such an argument. For Zizek, this
antiessentialistmomentcreates a kind of psychoanalytic"hero"whose fall from grace
(from the imaginaryinto the ideological) entails a perpetualenmeshingin the discourse
of the signifier as the "sign of an absence." But the fate of the explicitlypolitical subject
is less a fall into the abyssof"nonknowledge"(of "ideology"as a meaningless"traumatic
kernel")than an involvement in the ongoing processes of negotiation,mediation, and
rearticulation-processes that, although admittedly theoretically (and pragmatically)
endless, are no less engaged with materialistactions, interests,andpracticeson the part
of the materialist"subject."
In Zizek's scheme, the subject is an explicitly ideological subject for whom
"ideology"becomes defined as a compensationfor the failed identificationsinherentin
the antiessentialistclaim that "society does not exist." In this regard,Zizek is perhaps
philosophicallycloser to Althusserthan he would choose to admitinsofaras both want
32

something more from Lacan's Real (their own version of the "Che vuoi?") than it can
deliver.7Inparticular,Zizek wantsthe"impossible,traumatickernel"thatconstitutesthe
logic of Lacan's Real to be analogous ("ion-exchangeable"?)to Laclau and Mouffe's
antagonism,that is, to transformtheirantagonisminto a Lacanian"hole"in the field of
the Other. But Laclau and Mouffe would choose to emphasize the "purenegativity"of
the ideological less as the (psychic) impossibilityof symbolizationthanas a momentof
realoverdetermination-an overdeterminationthatdoes not preventparticipationwithin
concrete practices (however fragmented and momentary). As Laclau and Mouffe
themselves point out cogently, "If society is not totally possible, neither is it totally
impossible"[129].
The problemhere may finally be thatZizek's interpretationof LaclauandMouffe's
antagonism(to a greaterextentthanGoux's interpretationof Lacan)is less Lacanian(and,
hence, less psychic) than it is Hegelian. What is perhapsultimatelyat stake in Zizek's
appropriationof Laclau and Mouffe's concepts of antagonismand radicalimpossibility
for his own characterizationof ideology as an instance of "purenegativity"is less an
outlinefor a genuinely psychoanalyticpolitics thanhis own carefullyconstructed"return
(via Lacan) to Hegel." Let us consider the significance of Zizek's choice of title: the
"sublimeobject"of ideology. Initiallytakinghis cue fromKant'sCritiqueofJudgement,
Zizek defines the Sublime as "an object in which we can experiencethis very impossibility, this permanentfailureof the representationto reachafterthe Thing"[203]. Zizek
argues, however, that it was not Kantbut Hegel who fully understoodthe "dialectical
moment"of the sublime:whereas Kant"still presupposesthatthe Thing-in-itselfexists
as somethingpositively given beyond the field of representation"[205], Hegel poses the
Thing-in-itself as "nothingbut this radical negativity"[206; Zizek's emphasis]. For
Zizek, the HegelianAufhebung(not unlike Lacan'sReal) is to be characterizedas a kind
of residuethatresists dialectical sublation. More importantly,the sublime object is that
which "fills out the emptyplace of the Thingas the void... which, by its very inadequacy,
'gives body' to the absolute negativityof the Idea"[206].
As we have seen, throughouthis work Zizek successfully argues that ideology is
inherentlypsychic-but if, as I have suggested,he has failed to show how his "ideology"
is inherentlypolitical, it may be becauseof the statusof the "object"within his discourse
of "impossibility."Interestingly,at one point Laclauand Mouffe characterizesociety as
an "impossibleobject"of ideology [112], and one wonders if Zizek's emphasis on the
"sublimeobject"is not at least partiallymotivatedby a directecho of LaclauandMouffe.
But whereas Laclauand Mouffe's "impossibleobject"points to the inherentcontradictions of the postmodernpolitical field, Zizek's "sublimeobject"figures not the irreconcilability of real social and political movements, but ratherdas Ding, the status of the
impossible Thing (of ideology as the Thing-in-itself)as the "impossible-real"object of
desire. Whatgets occluded(sublated?)in Zizek's modulationfromLaclauandMouffe's
"impossible"objectto his own "sublime"objectis the "impossibility"of politics (thatis,
the very real antagonisms,shifting alliances, and negotiationsof real political struggle)
7. Zizek is hardlyto blamefor wantingtheRealto "do"so much,giventhatLacanhimself
madeever-increasing
demandsonhisownconceptof theReal.InhisrecentThe
(andambiguous)
LacanianDelusion,FrancoisRoustangoffersa historyof the development
of the Real within
Lacan'sthought,a historythat, in Roustang'sassessment,poses a numberof irreconcilable
contradictions.
theRealas aproductof thepsychotic's
RoustangnotesthatLacanfirstformulated
Real,
incapacitytosymbolize.Butlater,theRealbecomes,inRoustang'sterms,a "contradictory
whichcomesto bebothanobstacleanda void"[82]. Inotherwords,theRealhasmodulated
from
thepsychotic'sincapacityto symbolizeto, moregenerally,whateverresistssymbolization
(a
"lack," or a "gap," or a "hole," etc.). RoustangarguesthatalthoughLacanfelt the needto
formulatea RealdistinctfromtheSymbolic,he wasneverable successfullyto separatethetwo
realms.
diacritics / spring 1993

33

in favor of a Hegelian discoursethat hypostasizescontradiction(and a leftover, "negative"kernel)as aninternalconditionof every identity. It is in thissense, then,thatZizek's
appropriationof Laclauand Mouffe's "radicalimpossibility"seems less engaged with
politics and ideology than with the relevance of Lacan's Real for a philosophical
enrichment of our understandingof a Hegelian metaphysics of self-identity as the
coincidencewith its own void. The discourseof "impossibility"thatZizek celebrateshas,
I would argue,muchcloser affinitieswith the intellectualhistoryof a Europeandiscourse
on the Sublime as the failureof representationthan with the "radicalimpossibility"of
Laclau and Mouffe's discontinuousfield of postmodernpolitics. In the final analysis,
Zizek's "sublimeobject"of ideology is a kind of Lacaniantuche, which can only effect
a "missed encounter"with the Real of postmodernpolitics.
The challengefor a psychoanalyticpolitics is to confrontandconsidermoreseriously
the dauntingcomplexitiesof the conceptof the "political."Morespecifically,it will have
to take into accountthe new strugglesandthe wide diversityof social relationsthathave
so overdeterminedthe complex field of postmodernpolitics. What is the "place"of
psychoanalysiswithinthe radicallynew andshiftingpoliticalspaces thatguaranteethere
can be no necessaryrelationsamidst a multiplicityof subject-positions? Might not the
"and"of the phrase"psychoanalysisand politics" threatento become merely paratactic
when the concept of the "political"within postmodernism(as Laclauand Mouffe have
shown) has itself become so unsettled-so multipleandeven contradictory?Whatis the
common discursive ground between psychoanalysis and the highly unstable logic of
postmodernpolitics?
It shouldbe pointedout here thatZizek's attemptsto "psychoanalyze"ideology via
LaclauandMouffewere no doubtat least partiallyadducedby the authors'own continual
deployment of psychoanalyticterminology. For that matter, their claim that "every
society [is] constitutedas a repression of the consciousness of the impossibility that
penetratesthem"[125] poses as a virtualmanifestofor a psychoanalyticpolitics, as does
theirresuscitationof the Althusseriansense of overdeterminationas havingits origins in
Freudian psychoanalysis [97]. Throughouttheir Hegemony and Socialist Strategy,
Lacaniantermsare liberallydistributed: society as an impossible "suture,"the process
of articulationas a point de capiton, antagonism as a kind of metonymic, "floating
signifier,"temporarynegotiationsas "nodalpoints,"and so on. But to what extent are
these psychoanalyticmetaphorsmerely metaphorical?
I argue that Laclau and Mouffe's project of articulatingthe complexities of a
postmodernpolitics would have been just as innovative and compelling without their
psychoanalyticmetaphors.The authors'centralconceptsof articulation,antagonism,and
radical impossibility are not especially enhanced by their recourseto "Lacanianisms"
that,althoughcarryingwith thema certainprovocativecharge,do notpossess anyfurther
polemical value. In orderto rendermore meaningfultheir invoking of psychoanalytic
terms,Laclauand Mouffewould need to be more specific aboutthe precisenatureof the
intersectionbetween the social (as thatwhich has no "essence")andthe psychic, which,
however fragmented, alienated, and deconstructed, is surely a major factor in the
implementingof politicalactions. Theiruse of psychoanalytictermsto furtherelucidate
certain ideological and political phenomena is too broadly deployed to allow for a
considerationof the individualpsyche as a factor in the operationsof ideology.
WhatLaclauandMouffedo notconsider,forexample,is thedifficultquestionof how
the individual psyche is to be factored into collective processes of negotiation and
mediation. They characterizeantagonism as a kind of "floating signifier," but this
metaphortells us nothingaboutwhat happenspoliticallywhen the individualsubject(to
extend theirLacanianscheme to its logical conclusion) desires itself as what it is not. In
order to justify their Lacanianterminology, Laclau and Mouffe would have to pursue
furtherthe ideological implicationsof what it means, in an "antagonistic"society, for the
34

(political)subjectto receive no responsefromthe Otherof ideology except a signifierthat

representsthat subject for anothersignifier. As Laclau and Mouffe rightly argue, the
politicalis characterizedby conflict anddivision, but is this conflict psychic as well? Can
certain forms of political compromise (a collective "we" that must be formed out of
diversity and conflict) be usefully characterizedas the overcoming of psychic conflict
(narcissism,mimetic identificationsturnedaggressive, andso on)? In the final analysis,
LaclauandMouffe's deploymentof psychoanalyticmetaphorsdemonstratesthatwhatis
still to be determinedin culturecritiqueis the irreducibility(or the indispensability)of
psychoanalysiswithin the field of postmodernpolitics. In short,they beg the questionof
whether the political field needs psychoanalysis at all: is it possible-indeed, is it
desirable-to constitutea psychoanalyticpolitics?
To summarizetheseattemptsat a psychoanalyticpoliticsby Goux, Zizek, andLaclau
and Mouffe, what emerges in all three cases is a kind of discursive "acting out" of
psychoanalysiswithin politics thatfails to achieve a disavowalof transference.Zizek's
attempts,for example, to portrayhysteriaas a kind of "failedinterpellation"andto posit
the LacanianRealas analogousto LaclauandMouffe's "societythatdoes notexist"effect
a transferenceonto the discourseof the sociopolitical. On the otherhand,Goux's project
for a psychic economy, whereby monetary operations are equated with the "dead"
(murdered)fatherof Lacanianpsychoanalysis,effects a transferenceontopsychoanalysis
(ironically, the "originator"of the concept of the transference)in order to make the
socioeconomic inherentlypsychic. In both cases, one discourse ends up demanding
allegiance by another.
I would argue, however, that the case of Laclau and Mouffe is more complex. I
hesitateto makethe simple claim thatwhen they equatethe Lacanian"floatingsignifier"
with a sociopolitical"antagonism,"LaclauandMouffe aremerelydisavowinga transference. Rather,I would suggest that, more than Goux or Zizek, they do come close to a
psychoanalyticpolitics-one that begins not with the transferencesbetween the discoursesof psychoanalysisandpolitics, butratherwith theirconceptof radicaldemocracy
as a means of conceptualizinga new "postmodernagency." In Laclau and Mouffe's
conception,within the field of politics the postmodernagent inevitablyinhabitsnotjust
multiple and shifting but also conflicting subject-positions;and I would maintainthat
Laclau and Mouffe's "postmodernagency," as a mediationbetween poststructuralism
and an insistence on a historicalmaterialism(that is, as a reminderthat the decentered
subject is still performingpolitical work within the social field), could serve as the
discursive space of a psychoanalyticpolitics. A focus on postmodernagency could, in
other words, advance psychoanalytic discourse beyond transferentialanalogies and
isomorphswithin the sociopolitical.
All of which is to arguethat the goal here would not be simply to give antagonism
the psychoanalyticlabel of "floatingsignifier,"but ratherto articulatewhat it meansfor
the postmodernagent to inhabit the site of intersectionbetween the political and the
psychic. Eversince its inception,what psychoanalysishas in some sense done best is to
offer increasingly refined theories of the "subject"and the unconscious. A focus on
Laclauand Mouffe's postmodernagent as an authoritativesite of resistanceto ideology
will need the insights of psychoanalysis to furtherunderstandthese moments of resistance;a theoryof agency, in otherwords,will have to takethe complexitiesof the psyche
into account. But what direction should such a program take? How inherently
"psychoanalytic"and how inherently"political"is the concept of agency? On the one
hand,psychoanalysismightwish to presentan argumentthatthe subjectis, in some sense,
blindto its own agency. Lacanmightargue,for example,thatbecausewe can decideonly
retroactivelywhat we "will have been," the "agent"would have performeda (political)
act (of oppositionor alliance,for example) before it took cognizanceof this act. Because
forZizek, the subjectcan "enjoyhis symptom"only insofaras its logic escapes him, then
diacritics / spring 1993

35

he might choose to characterizethe politicalwork of agency as a kind of "blankspot"thatwhich the agent must repressin orderto organize itself.
But a moreinherentlypoliticalapproachto agencywould emphasizethattheconcept
of a postmodernagency is a refusal to interpretthe subject as merely a "blankspot,"
always alreadyundoing itself within a society that"does not exist." Withinthe field of
postmodernpolitics, the agent, as we have seen, inevitablyinhabitsnotjust multipleand
shifting but also conflicting subject-positions. But to acknowledge the multiple and
shifting groundof politics should not be to deny thatthese subject-positions(or agents)
arestill seeking thegroundof theirpracticesandthatthereis a concretenessto theiractions
(actions as defined by intervention,opposition,interests,alliances) such that, in certain
situations,they could have acted otherwisethanthey did.8 The radicalcontingencythat
intersectswith concretepracticesresultsin an incompatibilityof subject-positions,butit
is that very incompatibilitythat can rendera returnto such concepts as intentionality,
accountability,andreasonsforaction(conceptsthathavebeenso thoroughlydeconstructed
by poststructuralism)worthyof theoretical(and, in particular,psychoanalytic)attention
again. The incompatibility that can result from overlapping (and overdetermined)
subject-positionsmay or may not be presentto consciousness at any given moment(that
is, may or may not be a productof awareness)-and it is this (real) indeterminacythat
servesas thediscursivespaceof a psychoanalyticpolitics. If anAlthusserianinterpellation,
to pose one scenario,resultsin a division (orSpaltung)of the (Lacanian)subjectsuch that
the nonsutured"real"subject (as opposed to the "represented"subject that is readily
availablefor interpellation)is always in the processof disavowingits constructionin the
field of the Other,thena psychoanalyticpoliticscould havemuchto say aboutthe psychic
valence of these moments of resistance-that is, how they become transformedinto
political action, how the agent constitutesitself as a "conscious"subjectthatcould have
acted otherwise, how it fights for "recognition"within the political field, and so on.9
To considerin greaterdetailthe politicalcausesof agency(thebuildingorbreakdown
of coalitions, the transformationof networks,the integrationof hegemonicpractices,the
redefinitionof interests,the negotiationof difference)-in effect, to considerthe multiple
and shifting political operationsof Laclau and Mouffe's "radicaldemocracy"as they
intersect with the intentionality and accountabilityof the agent-would result in a
dynamic,cutting-edgediscoursethatcouldbothrespecttheautonomyofthepolitical, that
is, acknowledge the real work of political action, and preserve the domain of the
psychoanalytic, that is, acknowledge that we can and must continue to talk about the
operationsof the unconscious within the field of ideology, but in a way that is free of
predictable recourse to argument through analogy.'0 The formation of a genuinely
8. AndrewRoss, also buildingon Laclau andMouffe,poses the challenge in termsof theneed
"torecognize thepluralistic autonomyof different(social) logics of whichthepsychic is only one,
as opposedto assumingthatthese often contradictorylogics can be commonlyharnessedeitherto
some neo-positivisticlaw of evolutionarynecessity,or alternatelyto a hermeneuticunderstanding
of repressionthat could describe and accountfor the universalityof ideological servitude"[122].
9. A psychoanalyticpolitics could consider,for example,racism as one of the more harmful
consequencesof an agency that may or may not be present to consciousnessat any given moment.
We can turn to the work of Homi Bhabhafor a cogent account of how, in particular, the racial
stereotype of colonial discourse works according to fundamentalpsychoanalytic principles.
Specifically,Bhabha argues that racism is predicatedonfetishismas a need to assert masteryand
pleasure: "Inthe act of disavowal and fixation the colonial subject is returnedto the narcissism
of theImaginaryand its identificationofan ideal-ego thatis whiteandwhole.... Theconstruction
of colonial discourse is then a complex articulation of the tropes of fetishism-metaphor and
metonymy-and theforms of narcissistic andaggressiveidentificationavailable to theImaginary"
[163-641.
10. In this regard, it is worth noting that the formation of a psychoanalyticpolitics could
"rescue"Laclau and Mouffefrom StanleyAronowitz'scharge thattheyare caught "inthe logical

36

psychoanalytic politics would result in a new and vastly enriched movement within
political criticism, that is, a more subtle, mediated way of interpretingthe complex
intersectionof the unconsciousand the sociopolitical. A focus on the postmodernagent
would be the importantfirst step toward a "working through"to a psychoanalytic
politics-an end to the repetitive "acting out" of psychoanalyticdiscourse within the
sociopolitical. If a genuinely psychoanalyticpolitics has so farprovento be a "discourse
of impossibility,"it is because the disavowal of transferencehas, up to this point, served
as the obstacle to any attemptat an articulationof the two discourses.
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