Less than 24 Hours

I can almost taste the Double Quarter. The beefy grease dripping almost through the bun as the cheese oozes mixing with ketchup, mustard, onions, etc. Do it up with a big ass thing of fries and an Ice Cold Coca-Cola Classic. Damn, I cannot wait.

Back, however, to the topic I began yesterday. Where was I. I know I explained the not buying into the basic precepts of the system thing. Oh yeah, I finished up with the argument that "to read the letter of the law against itself" means to read the desire of the law.

So basically, what does this mean. I essentially started to introduce it in response to Nazi anti-semitism. The truth of Nazi anti-semitism is not simply that they hate Jews unjustifiably, though that is obviously true. The point is that the Jew occupies the place of the objet petit a. Complicated notion overall, but lets for the moment just consider it the object of desire. The object of desire, as might be noticed from Zizek's formulation as the "object-cause" of desire, is not simply external to the subject, something that s/he wants. Instead, it is what Lacan calls ex-timate (a neologism based on "external" and "intimate"). The subject's relation to the object of desire is the opposite of what one might imagine; there is no attempt to attain the object. This is the source of Lacan's ethical formulation "never give way to your desire." Attaining the object of desire usually is not possible, but attaining it when it is possible would be disastrous.

The object of desire, luckily, has the ability to shift based on symbolic constraints. If the object of your desire was another person for instance and that person was gone, someone or something else could easily come into place. In order for a person to occupy this place it would most likely have to be someone unattainable, a celebrity, historical figure, or fictional personality. This is why someone's lover/spouse is never the object of desire (if they are, they won't be for long) because the whole point of the object of desire is that there is something about it which is more than itself. A celebrity, for example, is imagined to be one way or another by her/his fans, but may be anywhere from somewhat like that to exactly the opposite. What is desired in them is not simply them as symbolic phenomena (their name, title, status, wealth, etc) but what is in them that escapes language.

If one were to obtain the object of desire the disastrous consequences come down in pretty much one of two ways. First, there is no basis for desire anymore. Since psychic life is organized around desire-the fantasy, the drives, etc are all structured in different ways depending on what someone's desire is at the time-the lack of an object for it would be devestating. Psychic processes stop functioning and most likely one becomes psychotic (I mean, you are halfway there, psychotics are primarily defined as those who lack desire). On the other hand, one gains the object of desire and necessarily discovers that the object you have attempted so hard to gain, the object that has organized one's entire world, isn't what you thought it was. I don't think I have to explain what that would ultimately mean.

Okay, time to tie this back in to the argument at hand. Keep in mind of course, that I am basing all this off an argument I have not actually heard and only tangentially know anything about. That said, it seems pretty clear that their argument is that the desire of the system they are addressing (be it academic debate or general intellectual practice or world politics or whatever) is to have women in such a position that they are either naked or non-existent. Don't think, however, that because Nikki and Sarah are against such a system, that their desire is any different than the system's itself.

Pretty much, I will summarize the argument. Basically, instead of reading the letter of the law against itself stripping naked in a debate round is the naive understanding of this form of reading-it fulfills the desire of the law, buys into the fantasmatic system which supports it, and in the worst case scenario effectively grasps the object of desire for themsleves, other participants, and judges.

Maybe more on this later or maybe I will progress to other arguments related to it.

NBA playoff time. I guess that is at least something to do on an otherwise boring Saturday afternoon which continues to lack the necessary weed to make it interesting.

Peace,

MB-K