Problemi International 2017 01.Pdf
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Problemi International No. 1 2017 Problemi (Vol. LV, Nos. 11–12/2017) ISSN 0555–2419 Problemi International (No. 1/2017) Edited by Simon Hajdini Copyedited by Rachel Aumiller Editor-in-chief Alenka Zupančič [email protected] Managing Editor Mladen Dolar [email protected] Editorial Board Miran Božovič, Mladen Dolar, Simon Hajdini, Peter Klepec, Zdravko Kobe, Dragana Kršić, Gregor Moder, Tadej Troha, Alenka Zupančič, Slavoj Žižek. International Advisory Board Bernard Baas (Strasbourg), Alain Badiou (Paris), Rey Chow (Durham), Joan Copjec (Providence), Fredric Jameson (Durham), Catherine Malabou (Kingston, Paris), Robert Pfaller (Vienna), Eric L. Santner (Chicago), Thomas Wallgren (Helsinki). Publisher Društvo za teoretsko psihoanalizo / Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis Igriška ulica 2 1000 Ljubljana SI – Slovenia EU www.problemi.si Cover Design: AOOA Layout: Klemen Ulčakar Problemi International is distributed free of charge. Table of Contents Introduction . 5. Slavoj Žižek The Varieties of Surplus. 7 Frank Ruda Philosophy and Courage . .33 Mladen Dolar Of Drives and Culture. .55 Jean-Claude Milner Back and Forth from Letter to Homophony. 81 Alenka Zupančič Lying on the Couch . .99 Rey Chow The Subject of Chinglish. 117 Simon Hajdini Comedy from a to Z: On the Subject-Matter of Ideological Interpellation . .129 Gregor Moder The Impossible Object of Love: Shakespeare, Billy Wilder and Freud. 159 Jan Voelker Heidegger’s Movies: National Socialism and the End of Philosophy . .181 Tadej Troha On Ambivalence. 217 Abstracts . 245 Notes on contributors . 250 Introduction 4 PROBLEMI INTERNATIONAL, vol.ATEIZEM 1Introduction no. 1, 2017 © Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis Introduction The journal Problemi was established in 1962. It was founded by the then Socialist Youth Organization and its initial aim was to provide a platform for the younger generation of philosophers, social theorists, writers, poets, artists, people working in humani- ties etc. It would be difficult to disentangle a common denomina- tor to the variety of young authors, but one could provisionally say that as far as theory is concerned it was initially based in the critical theory of the Frankfurt School in the broadest sense, while in literature and art the journal promoted modernism and avant- garde movements. The journal went through tumultuous times in the sixties and seventies, with a number of groups of different orientations (among them notably Heideggerians) negotiating a difficult cohabitation under the same label. The group whose work was based on structuralism and psychoanalysis, which joined the journal in the late sixties, was just one of the groups. In the eighties, the tensions were largely resolved by the establishment of two new journals, Nova revija and Literatura, where the other groups could get their proper space, while the ‘structuralism and psychoanalysis’ group, which increasingly developed in the direc- tion of Lacanian theory, became the core group of the journal. In the beginning of the nineties, with the end of socialism and of Yugoslavia, the Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis (estab- lished in 1981) became the official publisher of the journal (along with the book series Analecta). —This is a very brief reminder of the journal’s convoluted history, something that would demand a much longer elaboration. 5 Introduction There is a paradox with the establishment of Problemi Inter- national, the English edition of the journal, whose first issue is launched now in 2017. Since the mid-eighties, Problemi has already been massively international. Slavoj Žižek made his big interna- tional break-through with the publication of The Sublime Object of Ideology in 1989, and has since become one of the best known and most widely discussed theorists globally. He published more than thirty books in English since, and his work has been translated into nearly thirty languages. Several other authors followed suit, including the new generation over the last years. The paradox is that the vast majority of texts, ideas, and arguments that gained international fame and reputation (often described as the ‘Ljubljana School’) have been originally published in Problemi, a journal of limited circulation and published in a very small language (two million speakers). Problemi has been international for decades, the ideas stemming from this modest journal have gained global audience, while only few people are aware of the point of origin. So, the launch of Problemi International, which is to become a regular publication accompanying and supplementing the hard copy edition in Slovene, is a belated actualization of what this journal has been, if not ‘always already,’ then for a very long time. Problemi has also always been international in the opposite direction, namely by the space, time, energy and care devoted to the translation of most relevant contemporary theorists into Slovene, in the majority of cases providing the first Slovene trans- lations for a number of key figures (notably Lacan, but also many others). The number of international collaborators, whose work was translated in the journal, constantly grew, and it is with great pleasure that the international issue now features our international friends and collaborators alongside with the Slovene authors. Vivat, crescat, floreat. Mladen Dolar 6 PROBLEMI INTERNATIONAL,The vol. Varieties 1 no. 1, 2017 of Surplus © Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis The Varieties of Surplus Slavoj Žižek The Paradox of Lustgewinn Lacan begins the eleventh week of his seminar Les non-dupes er- rent (1973–74) with a straightforward question directed back at himself: “what was it that Lacan, who is here present, invented?” He answers the question “like that, to get things going: objet a” (Lacan 1973–74). His answer is not the idea that “desire is the desire of the Other,” or “the unconscious is structured like a language,” or “there is no sexual relationship,” or some other candidate from the list of usual suspects: Lacan immediately em- phasizes that his choice is not just one among the possible ones but THE choice. Objet a has a long history in Lacan’s teaching, preceding by decades his systematic references to the analysis of commodities in Marx’s Capital (Marx 1976). But it is undoubtedly this reference to Marx, especially to Marx’s notion of surplus-value (Mehrwert), that enabled Lacan to deploy his “mature” notion of objet a as surplus-enjoyment (plus-de-jouir, Mehrlust). The predominant motif, which permeates all of Lacan’s references to Marx’s analy- sis of commodities, is the structural homology between Marx’s surplus-value and what Lacan’s baptized surplus-enjoyment. Freud called this phenomenon Lustgewinn, a “gain of pleasure,” which does not designate a simple stepping up of pleasure but the additional pleasure (the “bonus” or “yield of pleasure” in Stra- chey’s English translation) provided by the very formal detours 7 Slavoj Žižek in the subject’s effort to attain pleasure. Think of Brecht’s Me-ti (see Brecht 2016) which, in its retelling of the history of revolu- tionary movements in Europe, transposes them into an imagi- nary China (Trotsky becomes To-tsi, etc.): our re-translation of pseudo-Chinese names back into their European original (“Aha, To-tsi is Trotsky!”) makes the text much more pleasurable—just imagine how much Me-Ti would have lost if it were to be written as a direct report on European history. Or—the most elementary example—how much a process of seduction gains with its intricate innuendos, false denials, etc.: these detours are not just cultural complications or sublimations circulating around some hardcore Real. This hardcore Real is retroactively constituted through secondary detours—“in itself” it remains a fiction. In libidinal economy, there is no “pure” pleasure principle undisturbed by the perversities of compulsion-to-repeat, which cannot be accounted for in the terms of the pleasure principle. In the same way, in the sphere of the exchange of commodities, there is no direct closed circle of exchanging a commodity for money in order to buy another commodity; the circle of simple commodity- exchange is not yet corroded by the perverse logic of buying and selling commodities in order to get more money, i.e., by the logic in which money is no longer just a mediator in the exchange of commodities but becomes an end-in-itself. The only reality is the reality of spending money in order to get more money. What Marx calls C–M–C, the closed exchange of a commodity for money in order to buy another commodity, is ultimately a fiction whose function it is to provide a “natural” foundation of the process of exchange (“It’s not just about money and more money, the whole point of exchange is to satisfy concrete human needs!”). M–C–M’ is the symptomal point at which a gap or reversal which was op- erative from the very beginning, even in the simplest commodity exchange, breaks out into the open. In short, in the same way that better is the enemy of good, more pleasure is the enemy of pleasure… The process of the 8 The Varieties of Surplus “gain-of-pleasure” or Lustgewinn operates through repetition: one misses the goal and one repeats the movement, trying again and again, so that the true aim is no longer the intended goal but the repetitive movement itself of attempting to reach it. One can also put it in terms of form and content where “form” stands for the form, the mode of approaching the desired content: while the desired content (object) promises to provide pleasure, a surplus- enjoyment is gained by the very form (procedure) of pursuing the goal. Here is the classic example of how oral drive functions: while the goal of sucking a breast is to get fed by milk, the li- bidinal gain is provided by the repetitive movement of sucking which thus becomes an end-in-itself.