Abstract
In this paper we explore and exploit the theoretical, empirical, and critical potential of subjectivity in political theory and psychoanalysis, suggesting that a turn to fantasy and enjoyment can help sharpen what is at stake in appeals to this concept. We indicate – in the first part – the way fantasy has already been invoked in the literature to enhance our understanding of organizational practices, in order to show – in the second part – how a Lacanian approach to “the subject of enjoyment” can supplement such accounts. We focus on three key themes linked directly to the concept of subjectivity. The first theme concerns how to think the relationship between political and ethical subjectivity. The second revolves around how fantasy and enjoyment allow us to rethink the relationship between reason and affect. The final theme explores how a logic of fantasy allows us to explore what has been called “the problem of self-transgression”.
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Notes
For a detailed Lacanian analysis of utopian fantasies see Stavrakakis (1999), especially Chapter 4.
For an exploration of the relation between fantasies of leaders and fantasies of followers, see Kets de Vries and Miller (1984), and Schwartz (1990).
For examples of the way how the Lacanian concept of fantasy has already been deployed in the context of workplace practices, see Fleming and Spicer (2003); Byrne and Healy (2006); and Contu and Willmott (2006).
In this context, it is worth noting that the resources available to the lacking subject in order to attempt a (re)constitution of her identity are, broadly speaking, of two distinct types: imaginary and symbolic. Hence the distinction Lacan draws between imaginary and symbolic forms of identity and identification. On this, see Fink (1995, pp. 84–90); Stavrakakis (1999, Chapter 1); Glynos (2000b, pp. 96–101).
In this section, especially in our analysis of nationalism, we draw on Stavrakakis with Chrysoloras (2006) – also see Stavrakakis (2007, Chapter 5).
Utopia is used here in the strong sense of the word, as a discourse that offers final and unquestionable solutions from the point of view of a subject supposed to know whose authority is never really put into doubt. It needs to be acknowledged, however, that contemporary utopian studies are considering alternative, less rigid understandings of this concept, with the aim of avoiding the more dubious political implications of subscribing to a strong utopian programme. See, for example, Levitas's discussion of Jacoby's anti-utopian “iconoclastic utopianism” and her plea for a recognition of the “necessary failure” of utopia (Levitas, 2007, pp. 302–303).
This section draws on and develops ideas in Logics of Critical Explanation in Social and Political Theory (Glynos and Howarth, 2007. See, especially, pp. 127–132).
For a more detailed discussion of this see Glynos and Howarth (2007, pp. 110–113, 120–123); and Stavrakakis (2007, Chapter 8).
For a detailed account of Lacan's shifting position on affectivity see Stavrakakis (2007, Chapter 2).
From a Deleuzian perspective, Brian Massumi has also elaborated a similar distinction between emotion and affect. According to Massumi, “emotion and affect – if affect is intensity – follow different logics and pertain to different orders” (Massumi, 1996, p. 221). Affect here is understood as an unassimilable intensity, while emotion entails the “insertion of intensity into semantically and semiotically forced progressions, into narrativisable action-reaction circuits, into function and meaning” (Massumi, 1996, p. 221). In this sense, emotion marks a “capture and closure of affect” within a primarily symbolic structure (Massumi, 1996, pp. 228, 220), and initiates a dialectic similar to the one between real and symbolic in Lacan.
See Stavrakakis, 2007, Chapter 4.
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Acknowledgements
This paper is based on a text presented at the 58th PSA Annual Conference, Swansea, 1–3 April 2008. We benefited from critical comments made during this presentation, but we also thank Calum Neill and Derek Hook – and the anonymous reviewers of Subjectivity – for their detailed comments and recommendations.
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Glynos, J., Stavrakakis, Y. Lacan and Political Subjectivity: Fantasy and Enjoyment in Psychoanalysis and Political Theory. Subjectivity 24, 256–274 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2008.23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2008.23