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Eternal Recurrence and the Lacanian Death Drive Jeanne L Yeshiva University, Cardozo School of Law LARC @ Cardozo Law Articles Faculty 2003 Can Lawyers Be Cured?: Eternal Recurrence and the Lacanian Death Drive Jeanne L. Schroeder Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/faculty-articles Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Jeanne L. Schroeder, Can Lawyers Be Cured?: Eternal Recurrence and the Lacanian Death Drive, 24 Cardozo Law Review 925 (2003). Available at: https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/faculty-articles/176 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty at LARC @ Cardozo Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of LARC @ Cardozo Law. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. CAN LAWYERS BE CURED?: ETERNAL RECURRENCE AND THE LACANIAN DEATH DRIVE Jeanne L. Schroeder* Perhaps Nietzsche's strangest idea is "eternal recurrence." Indeed, it is so strange that, despite its centrality in his works,' some of Nietzsche's modem interpreters—^most notably Alexander Nehamas^—distance themselves from a literal interpretation of the doctrine. Rather than a cosmology, it becomes a mere thought experiment. This may be necessary if one wants to defend Nietzscheanism as a single coherent philosophy.^ It does, however, fly in the face of much of Nietzsche's language."* I, here, venture no opinion as to the empirical Nietzsche's actual behef in the scientific or epistemological status of etemal recurrence. I merely offer some thoughts based on Lacanian psychoanalysis on both the concept of eternal recurrence as well as the reactions of modem day Nietzscheans toward it. I suggest, among other things, that eternal recurrence looks forward to Lacan's concept of drive: the abandonment of desire, understood as the pursuit of a teleological goal, in favor of circular, iterative activity. Surprisingly, in psychoanalysis "drive" brings cure—^relief from the unbearable pressures of desire. Does this suggest why * Professor of Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, New York City. ' For example, Zarathustra is called "the teacher of the etemal recurrence." FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA 220 (Walter Kaufmann trans., 1995) [hereinafter NIETZSCHE, ZARATHUSTRA]. He sings how he lusts after his bride, "eternity and after the nuptial ring of rings, the ring of recurrence[.]" Id. at 229. 2 See infra text at notes 18,19. ^ See infra text at notes 18,19. Consequently, Schacht admits: "1 would argue that several of his presuppositions are in fact questionable at best, and that his reasoning is fallacious. I would only contend that these passages clearly show him to have been convinced of the truth of the doctrine of etemal recurrence and of its demonstrability " RICHARD SCHACHT, MAKING SENSE OF NIETZSCHE 45 (1995). 925 926 CARDOZO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 24:3 eternal recurrence held so much fascination for a man locked in a losing battle with psychosis? From this I ask whether the concept of eternal recurrence has any relevance to the practice of law. Can lawyers be cured? This paper proceeds as follows. I start with accounts of eternal recurrence and the case for treating it as a thought experiment, or theory of human nature, as opposed to a cosmology, or theory of nature. I then suggest a few interpretations of eternal recurrence drawn from Lacanian theory. First, one simplistic interpretation is that the theory of eternal recurrence is an example of the mascuhne sexuated position—^an attempt to deny the split or negativity that constitutes subjectivity that Nietzsche recognizes elsewhere in his work. Second, the presumption adopted by some Nietzscheans—^that one can both claim to reject a literal interpretation of eternal recurrence while simultaneously using it "as though it might be true" for certain purposes—^reflects the psychoanalytic strategy known the "fetishist split." Third, I offer a more sophisticated interpretation of eternal recurrence, comparing it to Lacan's concept of "drive." In the final section I turn to an analysis of legal practice based on Lacanian discourse theory. I ask whether an attorney can cure herself from the unhappiness and resentment caused by desire by adopting a theory of eternal recurrence and still engage in the practice of law. I. ETERNAL RECURRENCE A. Truth or Consequences Eternal recurrence is the idea that every event in the universe necessarily repeats itself exactly an infinite number of times. With respect to individuals, this means that our life has already occurred and will recur exactly the same way, without deviance, over and over and over. Nietzsche's most vivid description of eternal recurrence appears in The Gay Science. In The Gay Science, Nietzsche explains that: What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to 2003] CAN LA WYERS BE CURED? 927 retxim to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!" Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?^ Nietzsche later presents a strikingly similar accoimt (down to the reference to the moonlight and spider) in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In notes posthumously published in The Will to Power, Nietzsche calls eternal recurrence "the most scientific of all possible hypotheses."® He relates the idea of cyclical time as far back as at least Heraclitus.^ It is Zarathustra's "most abysmal thought."® The Will to Power contains a "proof" or the necessarily literal truth of the theory: If the world may be thought of as a certain definite quantity of force and as a certain definite number of centers of force—^and every other representation remains indefinite and therefore useless—^it follows that, in the great dice game of existence, it must pass through a calculable number of combinations. In infinite time, every possible combination would at some time or another be realized; more: it would be realized an infinite number of times. And since between every combination and its next recurrence all other possible combinations would have to take place, and each of these combinations conditions the entire sequence of combinations in the same series, a circular movement of absolutely identical series is thus demonstrated: the world as a circular movement that has already repeated itself infinitely often and plays its 5 FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, THE GAY SCIENCE 273-74 (Walter Kaufmann trans., 1974) [hereinafter NIETZSCHE, GAY SCIENCE]. ® FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, THE WILL TO POWER 36 (Walter Kaufmann & R.J. Hollingdale trans., 1967) [hereinafter NIETZSCHE, WILL TO POWER]. ^ RICHARD SCHACHT, NIETZSCHE 254-55 (1985). In his early lectures on the pre- Platonic philosophers delivered when he was a yoxmg philology professor, he attributes cyclical cosmology even earlier to Anaximander. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, THE PRE- PLATONIC PHILOSOPHERS 37 (Greg Whitlock trans., 2001) [hereinafter NIETZSCHE, THE PRE-PLATONICS]. 8 NIETZSCHE, ZARATHUSTRA, supra note 1, at 216. 928 CARDOZO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 24:3 game in infinitum? Nietzsche states that eternal recurrence necessarily follows from the theories of eternal time and the conservation of energy and matter.!" ^hat is, if time is infinite but the physical world is finite, then there will be a limited number of combinations of the physical world that must repeat endlessly. Some Nietzscheans accept the proposition that Nietzsche must have believed in the probability, if not the necessity, of the literal truth of eternal recurrence on the grounds that it is hard to understand Nietzsche's excitement about the concept if he hadn't. For example, Arthur Danto states that: I have quoted this at length to show unequivocally that Nietzsche really was saying, not that similar things go on happening, not that there are always similar instances falling under the same law, not anything which ordinary common sense might suppose him to have meant: he meant that the very same things keep coming back again and again, themselves and not mere simulacra of themselves. He felt this to have been his most important teaching He was, according to Lou Salome, reluctant to disclose it to the world until he could find the scientific confirmation he thought it must have if it was to be accepted.!! Indeed, "[a]t one point [Nietzsche] even considered resuming student life, to study the natural sciences in order to find more support for a doctrine he believed to be of the utmost importance. "!2 Schacht argues that Nehamas' dismissal of Nietzsche's behef in eternal recurrence is inconsistent with his writings. At times, to be sure, [Nietzsche] seems less concerned with the truth of the doctrine than with the cultivation of an affirmative attitude toward life so great that one not only could endure the thought of an eternal recurrence ..
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