Post by theplague on Aug 28, 2010 9:55:08 GMT -6
www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/psychoanalysis/lacanstructure.html
The above link is a good synopsis of the 20th century French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (a contemporary of Jean-Paul Sartre, Salvador Dali, etc.).
It recently occurred to me how similar Lacan's idea of "the real" as opposed to inter-subjective "reality" dove-tails into the idea that the realm of the "Old Ones" is more ontologically "primal" than society-created "reality".
For Lacan, "reality" belongs to what he called "the symbolic", namely, the world of language/culture/etc. We are divorced from our primal natures, our instincts, most especially, our libidinal instincts, by the world of culture. We are sort of "east of Eden", cut off from our innate state by entrance into the conventions of language, rules, authority, etc. These rules and authority are taken to be "reality" (for example, the Judeao-Christian god).
But we really want to get back to "the real", the pre-language state where only the basic things remain - to coin a more recent phrase (not used by Lacan), it is the "4 F's" - fighting, fleeing, food, and, shall we say, reproduction. We want to get back to the primal ecstasy of being, not mitigated and obfuscated by cultural norms. This state of being is neither good nor bad, it is just primal, instinctual. The notion of "joissance" from Lacan comes into play here - that is the state of joy, of ecstasy, and sometimes even of pain (read: bondage play for instance) that momentarily pushes aside the symbolic order ("reality") and opens up the real, the primal, pre-language state of being. Joissance is the "excess" of Desire. This means we can desire, say, a car. We can get that car, but we are unsatisfied. Nothing can ever satisfy in terms of getting stuff, since "stuff" is not ever what is really desired. So left-over desire, the feeling of desire even after we attain our needs, creates the condition for joissance, needing to fulfill this left-over desire in terms of intense pleasure or even pain. The reason there is always left-over desire, is what we really desire is to get back to the real, to get away from 'reality' and get to 'the real', the primal, pre-language state of being, where "subject vs. other" is not even a question.
Often just speaking for myself I have asked myself why do I freaking love the Old Ones so much - Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurah, Nyarlathotep, etc. After all, I am (otherwise) a fairly down-to-earth, scientific kind of person - I work in programming for goodness sake. I think the desire for the real provides the answer to this. The lack of the real we all experience Lacan calls the phallus, which is a symbol for the "emptiness" we feel, disconnected from the real. We seek a non-existent phallus (be it in the form of a car, a house, a whatever) to fulfill this gap. The things we use to fulfill this lack of the real, this phallus, Lacan called objet petit a - objet petit a is "the thing we think we want" (a new car or house or x-box) but in obtaining that, we are still unsatiated. Because to become the phallus (to become at one with the real) is what we both want, and what we cannot achieve. The Old Ones to me symbolize this "real", the primal state of unity with the primal instincts. Life in the symbolic is alienating, because we are alienated from our initial state in the real. The "subject", the "I", truly, for Lacan does not really exist, because it is just a linguistic construct, and identifying ourselves with this is by its very nature an act of alienation. We are alienated from the real.
And here is the kicker: to enter the real, is, clinically and literally, to enter madness. For "sanity" is part of the symbolic, and to leave it, is to leave sanity. Thus we have Lovecraft's protagonists driven mad by encountering the Old Ones - not because they are creepy looking space aliens, that is only what it seems to be to the uninformed reader. This in itself does not create madness. Madness is created by entrance into the real, by exiting culture-created 'reality'. To encounter Dread Cthulhu is not simply to observe a vaguely nautilus-type marine entity from another planet, it is, in fact, to encounter the Real. This is what we at once most desire, and most fear. We fear going mad, which is the price to be paid for the real, but, at the same time, the real is what we most desire.
Perhaps we are, as Lacan said, forever distended from the real. But perhaps this acknowledgment is cathartic. If we know that want we really want is the real, and that is unobtainable, we will cease to try and make ourselves happy by pursuing endless objet petit a type things. If we cannot "really" encounter the real, then indirectly, through art in all of its forms, poetry, painting, films, etc., we can in a sense still encounter it, and not go mad in the process. Integrating the order of the real with the order of the symbolic (and the imaginary, which the link I posted above gets into, and I won't here), is the key to being "well-adjusted', for lack of a better word.
To conclude, a Lacanian analysis of the mythos gives us an interesting insight: the Old Ones can be taken symbolically as metaphors for encountering "the real". To encounter this "too much" is to go insane, but to not encounter it at all, is to leave us in a state of existential emptiness, without joissance. Therefore, and somewhat perversely, encountering the real via the literature and art of the Old Ones may be as good a way as any to break out of the cycle of "reality', endlessly pursing objet petit a's and thinking they will make us happy, while at the same time, remaining tethered enough to the symbolic to avert the madness into which HPL's protagonists so often subsided. This, at least, is as good an answer I can find for myself anyway, as to why I, the most scientific sort that I know, find myself so 'drawn' to the mythos. For it is there perhaps, that I can find relief from existential malaise, while still (hopefully) averting total madness. :-)
Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!
The above link is a good synopsis of the 20th century French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (a contemporary of Jean-Paul Sartre, Salvador Dali, etc.).
It recently occurred to me how similar Lacan's idea of "the real" as opposed to inter-subjective "reality" dove-tails into the idea that the realm of the "Old Ones" is more ontologically "primal" than society-created "reality".
For Lacan, "reality" belongs to what he called "the symbolic", namely, the world of language/culture/etc. We are divorced from our primal natures, our instincts, most especially, our libidinal instincts, by the world of culture. We are sort of "east of Eden", cut off from our innate state by entrance into the conventions of language, rules, authority, etc. These rules and authority are taken to be "reality" (for example, the Judeao-Christian god).
But we really want to get back to "the real", the pre-language state where only the basic things remain - to coin a more recent phrase (not used by Lacan), it is the "4 F's" - fighting, fleeing, food, and, shall we say, reproduction. We want to get back to the primal ecstasy of being, not mitigated and obfuscated by cultural norms. This state of being is neither good nor bad, it is just primal, instinctual. The notion of "joissance" from Lacan comes into play here - that is the state of joy, of ecstasy, and sometimes even of pain (read: bondage play for instance) that momentarily pushes aside the symbolic order ("reality") and opens up the real, the primal, pre-language state of being. Joissance is the "excess" of Desire. This means we can desire, say, a car. We can get that car, but we are unsatisfied. Nothing can ever satisfy in terms of getting stuff, since "stuff" is not ever what is really desired. So left-over desire, the feeling of desire even after we attain our needs, creates the condition for joissance, needing to fulfill this left-over desire in terms of intense pleasure or even pain. The reason there is always left-over desire, is what we really desire is to get back to the real, to get away from 'reality' and get to 'the real', the primal, pre-language state of being, where "subject vs. other" is not even a question.
Often just speaking for myself I have asked myself why do I freaking love the Old Ones so much - Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurah, Nyarlathotep, etc. After all, I am (otherwise) a fairly down-to-earth, scientific kind of person - I work in programming for goodness sake. I think the desire for the real provides the answer to this. The lack of the real we all experience Lacan calls the phallus, which is a symbol for the "emptiness" we feel, disconnected from the real. We seek a non-existent phallus (be it in the form of a car, a house, a whatever) to fulfill this gap. The things we use to fulfill this lack of the real, this phallus, Lacan called objet petit a - objet petit a is "the thing we think we want" (a new car or house or x-box) but in obtaining that, we are still unsatiated. Because to become the phallus (to become at one with the real) is what we both want, and what we cannot achieve. The Old Ones to me symbolize this "real", the primal state of unity with the primal instincts. Life in the symbolic is alienating, because we are alienated from our initial state in the real. The "subject", the "I", truly, for Lacan does not really exist, because it is just a linguistic construct, and identifying ourselves with this is by its very nature an act of alienation. We are alienated from the real.
And here is the kicker: to enter the real, is, clinically and literally, to enter madness. For "sanity" is part of the symbolic, and to leave it, is to leave sanity. Thus we have Lovecraft's protagonists driven mad by encountering the Old Ones - not because they are creepy looking space aliens, that is only what it seems to be to the uninformed reader. This in itself does not create madness. Madness is created by entrance into the real, by exiting culture-created 'reality'. To encounter Dread Cthulhu is not simply to observe a vaguely nautilus-type marine entity from another planet, it is, in fact, to encounter the Real. This is what we at once most desire, and most fear. We fear going mad, which is the price to be paid for the real, but, at the same time, the real is what we most desire.
Perhaps we are, as Lacan said, forever distended from the real. But perhaps this acknowledgment is cathartic. If we know that want we really want is the real, and that is unobtainable, we will cease to try and make ourselves happy by pursuing endless objet petit a type things. If we cannot "really" encounter the real, then indirectly, through art in all of its forms, poetry, painting, films, etc., we can in a sense still encounter it, and not go mad in the process. Integrating the order of the real with the order of the symbolic (and the imaginary, which the link I posted above gets into, and I won't here), is the key to being "well-adjusted', for lack of a better word.
To conclude, a Lacanian analysis of the mythos gives us an interesting insight: the Old Ones can be taken symbolically as metaphors for encountering "the real". To encounter this "too much" is to go insane, but to not encounter it at all, is to leave us in a state of existential emptiness, without joissance. Therefore, and somewhat perversely, encountering the real via the literature and art of the Old Ones may be as good a way as any to break out of the cycle of "reality', endlessly pursing objet petit a's and thinking they will make us happy, while at the same time, remaining tethered enough to the symbolic to avert the madness into which HPL's protagonists so often subsided. This, at least, is as good an answer I can find for myself anyway, as to why I, the most scientific sort that I know, find myself so 'drawn' to the mythos. For it is there perhaps, that I can find relief from existential malaise, while still (hopefully) averting total madness. :-)
Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!