Anyone gain any insights from reading Lacan?
Why does Zizek like him so much?
Where does one start with Lacan?
>>7739658
>Where does one start with Lacan?
With Freud, de Sausseur, and Levi-Strauss
>>7739658
Someone on /lit/ once recommended that I start here. It was decent so I'm passing it on.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/96126745/Bruce-Fink-a-Clinical-Introduction-to-Lacanian-P-BookFi-org
>>7739667
I was just about to say this.
>>7739667
what's the guy that invented blue jeans gotta do with this lol
He had some interesting points about the fucked up ways we think of stuff/ideas/values.
Really hard to read and not much payoff desu. I would only suggest reading what you have to and once you know you have to.
He's basically top-shelf "I say everything obscurely, retarded, and long-winded, so you must work to understand" tier.
>Where does one start with Lacan?
Lacan is the better version of Freud. So you start with Freud.
>Anyone gain any insights from reading Lacan?
Not really memorable ones.
>Why does Zizek like him so much?
Seems like a question only Zizek can answer.
bruce fink
Start with Anti-Oedipus
>>7739691
>Not really memorable ones.
Precisely this. I can recall him making some interesting developments on Freudian psychoanalysis, and a few interesting new points on signification and ego, but if you were to ask me to recite or recap any of it for you, I doubt I could. He's such an active user of terroristic obscurantism that it takes a great deal of effort to retain anything of any value from him.
Review I found on Amazon (1 of 2):
A Pataphysical Love for Lacan
In the Ecrits, Lacan states that our discourse (our speech and language) comes in an inverted form from the Other (those who are not like Us). In a similar line of thought, we can simply say that it is a sense of difference (which is brought about by unconsciously associating with certain social signs and cultural symbols) that goes on to structure an individual's identity (which is their own personal interpretation of their true self, making it Imaginary).
In other words, identity is shaped by associating with signs and symbols, unconsciously (in, what Lacan calls, the Symbolic Realm or Order). And since those signs and symbols are the opposite of what Others use to define themselves, we see them as being different from Us, and, as such, create a false sense of separation (an Us and Them scenario). It should be noted, however, that the Other is not always outcast or alienated for being the opposite. The Other, in fact, can be the unattainable object of our desire (our "objet petit a").
In a way, people desire because they build an identity, which divides them from Others by a means of difference. In other words, we desire that which is not like us (like the yin looking for its yang, unaware that both yin and yang are already within us from the start). This, of course, is all a symbolic illusion brought about by language (found, for Lacan, in the unconscious association of signs).
Still, in our society, we see people desire every day, trying to find that difference (or Other) to match the missing part of their identity (that part looking for its missing piece) even though such a thing doesn't exist. Searching for the object of our desire is a lot like a person that is suffering from an imaginary persecution complex. The person, who believes he is being persecuted, cannot find the persecutor because, in reality, the persecutor doesn't exist. The persecution is simply an imagining of the persecuted person's mind.
>>7739899
2 of 2:
For Lacan, the unconscious represents the discourse of the Other. In other words, we are not aware of the fact (we are unconscious to the fact) that what we seek in Others can already be found within ourselves (since the only ways in which we "sign-ificantly" differ from others is through the unconscious association of cultural signs and symbols). Using our example above, the persecuted person cannot find his persecutor in reality. And why? Because, in truth, the persecuted person is simply persecuting himself.
With the loss of identity, one loses signs of difference, and, in doing so, destroys desire (attaining a unity as opposed to duality perception). From here, it is easier to understand such Lacanian statements, like "The Woman does not exist." It is easier to see how the phallus (the mark of man) can, in fact, stand as the square root of minus one (an Imaginary measure). For, after all, gender identity (not biological sex), in itself, is a Symbolic discrepancy.
Though physical differences surely exist in reality, these physical differences between people have no "sign-ificance" or meaning without the inductance of cultural signs and symbols. The planet, we must know, is an impartial place (it is "indifferent," incapable of distinguishing between socially constructed identities brought about by symbolic differences). The natural world is without words. The wind does not speak. Space is silent in the realm of the Real (which cannot be attained, only approached like a mathematical limit, since it is otherwise "undefined", beyond the limits of our language). The same initial source of energy is continuously shared, neither created nor destroyed, shifting and transferring, ceaselessly, from state to state. It is both the One and All of everything.
>>7739658
Yes, a lot.
With Zizek you might understand if you read his books for that.
>>7739658
Yep, I really like him. Be aware, just like Foucault, loads of shitty colleage assignments have been written invoking and misunderstanding him. Loads.
>>7739658
>Why does Zizek like him so much?
because they both are hacks who make hazy statements that are completely disconnected from reality but are skilled enough to make them appear is if there is some great understanding beneath all the obfuscation
>>7739681
lmao
>>7739658
>Where does one start with Lacan?
protip: you don't
It's just Freudian Proust made really obscure.
He LITERALLY thinks women don't know what turns them on. It's beyond their linguistic abilities to describe.
But then he says they' just like being objectified by an Other.
Kristeva, Cixous, Beauvoir, Butler have all been trying to prove him wrong.
"You are pathetic and will be alone forever. Now give me my five cents!" - Jacques Lacan
Don't forget to give therapy sessions while you're getting a manicure and cut the session off short 'cause you wanna do other shit but tell them you're doing it to make the therapy more effective.
Oh, yeah, and beat your kids.
>>7741654
This guy is starting to sound pretty good.
>>7739681
fuck man haha
>>7739658
I really like the concept of petite object a.
>>7739667
So many brackets. Can they really be trusted?
