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The Lacanian Left: Psychoanalysis, Theory, Politics

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The Lacanian Left: Psychoanalysis, Theory, Politics BOOK REVIEWS Yannis Stavrakakis atic articulations of Lacanian theory with contemporary political analysis and critique The Lacanian Left: of hegemonic discourses and orders: Slavoj Psychoanalysis, Theory, Žižek’s combination of Lacanian psychoa- nalysis and Marxist tradition, Alain Badiou’s Politics reappropriation of Lacan’s thought, taking it in the direction of an “ethics of the event”, Er- Albany: State University of New nesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s endeavour York Press, 2007. 320 pp. to formulate a new vision of radical and plural democracy, but also, in the periphery of this circle of Lacan-inspired reorientation of po- litical theorisation, Cornelius Castoriadis and by Athena Athanasiou Judith Butler’s critical engagements. Through Panteion University a wide range of critical readings in political philosophy, Stavrakakis traces the conver- gent and divergent routes through which those theorists read and appropriate Laca- nian theory, perceive the politics of the Left, Yannis Stavrakakis’ The Lacanian Left: Psy- and, most importantly, actively engage in an choanalysis, Theory, Politics is an important emerging theoretico-political field that the and innovative exploration of the multiple in- author aptly calls the “Lacanian Left”. tersections between Lacanian psychoanalysis and critical political theory of democracy. It is a This is a divided, uneven, and heterogeneous valuable contribution to current theoretico-po- locus, however: a horizon – as both an ever- litical inquiries on how psychoanalytic theory negotiable demarcating limit and an enabling might reinvigorate political praxis today. Sta- opening of creative possibilities – constitut- vrakakis is associate professor of Political Sci- ed by (and as) the theoretical encounter be- ence at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki tween the symbolic and the real, knowledge and Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Theoreti- and experience, the social and the political. It cal Studies in the Humanities and the Social is at this horizon of tension and possibility – Sciences, University of Essex. He is the author or, limitation and promise – that Stavrakakis of Lacan and the Politicall (1999) and co-edi- traces the political implications of (encoun- tor of Discourse Theory and Political Analysis ters with) the Lacanian real. This is, in fact, (2000) and Lacan and Science (2002). the question upon which Stavrakakis’ episte- mological and theoretical project is crucially In this collection of essays, Stavrakakis ad- premised: how to articulate a political theory dresses the ways in which Lacanian psycho- based on the recognition of the unrepresent- analytic theory, in recent years, has been con- able, incommensurable and irreducible real versing with political theory and critical analy- – in an approach involving the simultaneous sis. He highlights some of the most emblem- awareness that the real (the realm of expe- 128 HISTOREIN VOLUME 8 (2008) rience) can never be mastered by the sym- dimensions of social constructions and radi- bolic (the domain where theory is articulated) cal imagination, Laclau on the affective limits but also the recognition that nonetheless one of discourse and the political implications of should assume the impossible task of sym- lack, Žižek on the paradigmatic appropriation bolising the real. of Antigone in the conceptualisation of politi- cal praxis and the “radical act”, and Badiou on By focusing on the “encounter with the real”, the ethical implications of (a positive politics to use a Lacanian phrase, Stavrakakis is en- of) the event. gaged in the task of reorienting the way we ar- ticulate our theories so that the trace of experi- Stavrakakis explores what he perceives as ence – above all, the experience of our failure disavowal of the political in Castoriadis’ theo- to symbolically master the real of experience retical apparatus. Linking the Lacanian real – is not eliminated, foreclosed or mortified with the disruptive moment of the political, once and for all. Therefore, the crucial impetus he shows how Castoriadis’ vitalist account of this book’s argumentation is to track down of the autonomy of an essentialised and self- the limits that the real of experience poses to contained subject, coupled with an idealised signification and representation; those limits conceptualisation of human imagination, is are not merely prohibitive but also enabling related to the disavowal of negativity. This in the process of continuous (re)articulation disavowal of negativity, however, amounts of social and political identity. The impetus to to an ultimate disavowal of the encounter register such limits bespeaks a mode of the- with the political: a moment when the limits orising that is indispensable to the emerging of autonomy – limits marked by the always Lacanian Left, according to Stavrakakis, and it already impossible attempts to capture the is in this context that he seeks to encircle the real through symbolic means – are exposed. affective limits of discourse analysis while pro- Here, the crucial question is: what could be posing novel approaches to some of the most the future of radical democratic politics in urgent social and political riddles of our tumul- light of the negative, that is, the real, limits of tuous times, such as the relationship between human autonomy and creativity? politics and emotion, jouissance and discourse, representation and enjoyment, ethics and so- The intersection between affect and discourse cial change, but also phenomena and events preoccupies the author in his analysis of La- related to national identification and national- clau’s discourse theory. The author’s signifi- ism, consumerism, advertising, de-democra- cant starting point here is the acknowledge- tisation and European identity. ment that prior theoretical formulations within discourse theory have considerably neglected In its first part, entitled “Dialectics of Disa- the dimension of affect and jouissance. Laclau vowal”, the book offers a detailed theoretical and Mouffe’s reorientation of the political the- study of specific engagements with the multi- ory of the Left towards a “radical and plural de- faceted field of the Lacanian Left, putting spe- mocracy”, and Laclau’s later solo work, exhibit cial emphasis on the different ways in which suggestive conceptual affinities with Lacanian particular theorists converse with the nega- theory and negative ontology. Stavrakakis ac- tive ontology of Lacanian theory: Castoriadis knowledges the productive underpinnings of on the positive and creative (instead of the al- Laclau’s strategic attempt to employ the cat- ienating in Lacan’s perspective of negativity) egory of the real and jouissance, and to recon- 129 Book Reviews ceptualise discourse with affect. Remaining ity and the negative dimensions of the real. critical of the ontological conceptualisation of Žižek’s theorisation of the act seems to un- discourse, when it is presented as an all-en- derestimate and bypass lack and finitude in compassing category within which the logic of favour of an unlimited positivity of human ac- jouissance is subsumed, he shows how La- tion. It tends to privilege the moment of the clau’s earlier (over)emphasis on discourse at political act as an apocalyptic or miraculous the expense of jouissance and the irruptions event, which exceeds the discursive limits of that affect manifests in the social field has the symbolic. Stavrakakis reads Antigone’s been changing gradually. lure for Žižek as symptomatic of his effective disavowal of the dialectics between negative The necessary question here is what concep- and positive, his negation of the encounter tual innovation would it take to reflect theo- with contingency and negativity: in appro- retically on the relation between signification priating Antigone as a heroic example of a and jouissance without neutralising the latter purely positive act, liberated from the bounds through its absorption into a concept of dis- of the symbolic order, Žižek transforms the course which remains intact, seamless, self- negativity of Antigone’s lack and desire to the enclosed and all-inclusive. Affect cannot be idealised voluntarist positivity of a glorious, reduced to merely an internal moment of dis- total ethico-political act. course. Insofar as we trace the affective limits of discourse through their vestiges within dis- Stavrakakis convincingly shows how Žižek’s course, we explore their constitutive relation. idealisation of Antigone as a model of radi- Employing the category of the real and accept- cal ethico-political action is in contradiction ing its paradoxes, Stavrakakis argues, ena- with his own Lacanian account of the act bles a fruitful consideration of affect and dis- as a non-subjectivist, non-wilful encounter course together, as two distinct and yet inter- with the real. The gesture of fetishising the connected realms. Laclau, on the other hand, act (in terms of a miraculous event auto- sees a double danger in the treatment of af- matically transubstantiating the negative to fect and discourse as two conceptually distinct positive) in the name of some political op- orders: first, the essentialisation of language timism bypasses the crucial dimension of and, second, the essentialisation of the oper- the lack in the socio-symbolic Other: “Thus, ations of the unconscious. For Stavrakakis, in opposition to Žižek’s strict differentiation however, taking into account form and force, between the ethics of assuming lack and a symbolic structuration and jouissance, is not politics
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