Abstract
This article proposes an explanation for the paradox arising from the blatant inconsistency of the green growth narrative and its unrestrained progress, under new terms and policy debates, including that of bioeconomy. Decoupling, the economic strategy supposed to make green growth possible, has already been analysed by other authors using the Lacanian notion of neurotic fantasy, meaning a mechanism for upholding an ideology while systematically concealing its inner contradictions. However, based on Lacan’s theory, it can be shown that the discursive construction of decoupling ultimately does not meet the criteria of fantasy. Instead, a more fundamental neurotic fantasy is identified as sustaining modern subjectivity in general and constituting the main obstacle to socio-ecological transformation, which is the fantasy of nature. Distinct from and additional to the neurotic socio-pathological reactions in the face of contradictions of capitalist growth and the increasingly doomed symbolic order of modernity, signs of a psychotic reaction, according to Lacanian theory characterised by foreclosure, are identified in the green growth narrative. It is argued that the imaginary reconstruction of nature that underpins this narrative entails the foreclosure of the signifier Nature in its law-giving and limiting symbolic function. The argumentation is further supported by showing that the bioeconomy and green growth narratives bear the characteristics of what Lacan calls the capitalist’s discourse and which entails foreclosure. The analysis outlined in this article aims to demonstrate the hitherto underutilised potential of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory in terms of identifying and overcoming barriers to transformation and opening up new modes of subjectivation beyond the nature–culture dichotomy.
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Notes
M-C-M′ stands for Money – Commodity – more Money, which is the general formula by which Marx describes the accumulation of industrial capital. M-M' denotes the accumulation of interest-bearing financial capital (Marx 1968, p. 170).
At this point the question may arise: Isn't Lacan´s theory of the exceptional subject status of humans anthropocentric and therefore incompatible with post-human thoughts like the ones of Latour? While his early theorization of the mirror stage based on the premature birth of the human infant (Lacan 1966b) seems to reaffirm the 'exceptional status” of humans, Lacan’s later teachings are by various authors understood as aligned with post-human or non-human thought (Viego 2007; Thakur and Dickstein 2018).
Timothy Morton (2007, p. 14) uses the expression 'fantasy of nature' in a very similar sense, however not referring to the technical Lacanian term.
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Handled by Sabaheta Ramcilovik-Suominen, Natural Resources Institute, Finland.
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The argumentation outlined in this article is largely based on my current doctoral project in philosophy at the Federal University of ABC (UFABC, Brazil).
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Schmidlehner, M.F. The green growth narrative, bioeconomy and the foreclosure of nature. Sustain Sci 18, 723–736 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01259-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01259-z