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- Опубликовано: 26 июн 2024
- The phallus must be understood as a signifier that signifies castration as such. When we think of it this way, we can understand how fraught the attempt to take up the phallus is and how psychoanalysis has responded to it by exposing the phallus as a fraud.
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This helps so much, Todd! I'm finally starting to understand this concept. The examples of the crown and the tie are very helpful. Just so I'm clear, the phallus (symbolic phallus) is a signifier, but not necessarily a signifier in the strict sense of being the material side of a sign (as in Saussure's differential theory of language)? In other words, the phallic signifier doesn't necessarily have to be a word, e.g., "No", "Dad", "Father", etc. The phallus can actually be an object, a mark, a gesture, etc., right? During the Oedipus complex, the symbolic phallus would be something semiotically linked to the person who fulfills the paternal function of limiting the child's jouissance. I know the phallus is not an object in the Real sense of "objet petit a", but it can be a literal object that functions as a signifier. Correct? And when we say that there's nothing beneath the phallus, could we reword this in Peircean terms to mean that the phallus is an indexical sign, a sign the indicates something else (as smoke indicates fire)? Yet, in the specific case of the phallus, the index is a total fake insofar as it merely indicates a void, a nothingness? In Baudrillard's terms, the phallus, then, would always be a simulation (indication) of masculine authority/power/vitality where there actually is none. Sorry to bombard you with so many questions. Ha. It's just all starting to click and I'm seeing how important this concept is. Thank you for all the help.
Yes, it is right to say that it is the one signifier with absolutely no indexicality and that objects often function as this signifier. It definitely does not have to be a word. One could even say that the illusion is sustained better when it is an object.
Todd McGowan Great. Good to know.
@@TheDangerousMaybe Just found your explanation of the phallus online. For me, Sexuation may now and forever, be tied to why He-Man’s hair doesn't waft in the breeze. Love your clarity and rigorous unfolding of concepts, pinning them down using a variety of thinkers. And so much fun! 😄 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
@@macguffin8540 Haha, good to hear! Thanks a lot! That blog post wouldn't have happened without Todd's video, though. He's the only Lacanian I've ever read that truly made the concept of the phallus make sense to me. My post is deeply indebted to Todd's ability to explain difficult concepts.
Regarding about the phallus only functioning when its concealment is concealed, you have ideas for why then, in ancient Greece or Rome for example, male nudidty is ubiquitous? Why such a hypermasculine society might see men wearing clothes as mostly ridiculous? Is it because men were objectified more in those societies or is there a deeper reason? Thank you for all these amazing vids!
Such a comprehensive, illuminating, reader-considerate, plus even entertaining elucidation of the topic. Truly a gem scholar 👍🏻
This is such a helpful video, thank you! As someone trying to understand this concept as to write about it in my dissertation, you have helped enormously. Your examples and multiple ways of explaining certain parts really made this concept finally makes sense to me so thank you!
1:09 “So psychoanalysis really as Alenka sees it is the first radical attempt to undermine the power of the phallus.“
16:10 *Masculine/feminine positions* “The position of femininity is the position attached to recognition of _lack_ beneath-what’s not beneath. Whereas masculinity is built upon the deception that there is some secure substance beneath. So masculinity is a belief in the _substance_ (S) of one’s identity whereas femininity is a belief in one’s _subjectivity_ ($). You might say femininity is the choice of absence rather than presence, whereas masculinity is an investment in the lie of presence. So femininity is the point of absence within the symbolic structure.”
Amazing point
Presence is only a lie when considered from a certain, you could say 'quantum', scale. In the world of the everyday - Dawkins' 'Middle World' - it is plainly true.
This video is pure gold, keep it up
Todd please keep making this kind of content
I had a similar thought of the importance of absence that was brought up at the end with the Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony statue with that of the Sistine Chapel ceiling depiction of God and Adam's almost touching. The importance of the touching gesture in the fresco is in the gap or absence of connection being the constitutive element (that of castration).
Sorry if this is a weird place to ask this but it seems like Why Theory? listeners contact you guys from time to time (requesting episodes) but I’ve never been able to figure out how. D’you guys have an email or a twitter or something?
You can contact either of us by email at todd.mcgowan@uvm.edu or ryan.engley@pomona.edu
I’m interested in how much Todd (and anyone else in the comments) would identify masculinity/femininity in the psychoanalytic sense directly with gender in the everyday social sense?
That's always an interesting question, but if there was no relationship at all, retaining the concept wouldn't make any sense. Obviously, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between sexuation in the psychoanalytic sense and masculine/feminine gender, but I do think that at least the gender stereotypes do bear some relation, as if they are attempts to adhere to the logic of the sexuation (not consciously, of course).
What do you think is the connection between master signifier and perception? Is it possible to think of the primacy of the signifier (Lacan) on the one hand and the primacy of perception (Merleau-Ponty) on the other? Thank you very much.
I think that they are mutually exclusive positions. Lacan gets a question about Merleau-Ponty during Seminar XI, and he rejects his position precisely on these grounds, that the primacy of the signifier rules out the primacy of perception. If one accepts the primacy of the signifier, then all perception occurs on the terrain laid out by signification. This is why I don't think that one can reconcile these two positions. Thanks!
I wonder if much of the enjoyment taken from a series like Twin Peaks (heck, most of David Lynch's ouevre actually) is related to this idea of the absence of the phallus or the veiling of it..
At least The Return seems to me like a study in the idea that the phallus is a fraud.
"O MAI GOD SPIDERMAN WAS TEHRE🗣️🔥🔥💯💯💯💯💯"
i'm dyin for you to do an object a vid todd
I'll plan on doing it soon.
Mr McGowan, I've been asking myself about masculinity and symbolic castration and I was wondering if it's actually a case of study looking for a new masculinity that transcends many of the issues it implies in this century.
I agree that the issue has changed, but I wouldn't say that the structures have. It's the position relative to them that is different.
I’m completely new to psychoanalysis. What reading would you recommend I start with first?
I think Freud's Introductory Lectures are always a great place to start. But Slavoj Zizek's Looking Awry is fun and accessible, so it wouldn't be bad either.
Todd McGowan thank you!! Also I love your videos they’re great as well
This reminds me of an incident recounted in the book Proust's Duchesses: Louis XIV had to have a fistula removed from his anus (pre-anesthesia) and passed out from the pain. But when he awoke, he told his worried court: "The man is suffering, but the king is fine."
what would you say is the difference between objet petit a and the phallus? The dynamic of "men want to have it women want to be it" resembles the dynamic present between obsessional/hysteric towards objet a in their fundamental fantasies. Also, given that the phallus signifies something the (m)other desires, does that mean the phallus is the signifier of the others desire, a.k.a signifier of the lack in the other?
The difference is that one is a signifier and the other is an (absent) object. The phallus provides the signifier of this absence and thereby translates it into a site of social recognition. I see why you identify the overlap, but I think that the distinction is important to sustain.
Early in the video McGowan picks two fringe cases that show the breakdown of signification and point towards its essential inadequacy; but the truth is that most signification does not ‘break down.’
Under the microscope its inadequacies may be revealed, but most of the time we tend not to operate at the microscopic/quantum scale: most signification is ‘good enough’ at the level of the everyday. We may shift focus when problems arise, but otherwise we remain at the surface, in the complacency of what Dawkin's termed 'Middle World'.
The 'lie' of Middle World is only a lie when viewed from the hinterlands. If atoms are the truth, then collections of atoms ('things') become mere illusion; if truth lies at the periphery, then the centre becomes false. The lie is necessary because most people need to believe that things are real and solid, and that their symbolic identity has substance and meaning - after all, we aren’t all mystics like Lacan.
I'm going through Bruce Fink's lovely book 'The Lacanian Subject' with a group of friends (actually on the recommendation of your fab book on The Rules of The Game), but I'm struggling with some bits of it, especially in connection to the more philosophical aspects of the theory discussed by yourself, zizek, etc. In particular, how on earth are we to make sense of traversing the fantasy as "[involving] a going beyond of castration", or of the "subjectifying the cause"? (I'm also a bit confused by his repeated emphasis of bringing "part" of the real back into the symbolic order - how can we even speak of the real as having parts? - but that's a bit less important to the thrust of the book)
I think the book is quite good, but it does make some theoretical points that I would disagree with.
@@toddmcgowan8233 how would you interpret traversing the fundamental fantasy? It seems very intimately related to hegel’s absolute knowing, and his formula ‘substance also as subject’ - indeed, Zizek says this explicitly in LTN but doesn’t go into systematic depth on the connection
@@OH-pc5jx Rick Boothby in Freud as Philosopher: “To traverse the phantasy in the Lacanian sense is to be more profoundly claimed by the phantasy than ever, in the sense of being brought into in ever more intimate relation with that real core of the phantasy that transcends imaging.” (275-276)
@@toddmcgowan8233 from this perspective, what does traversing the fantasy 'do' to the subject? Or, what kind of subject does it bring into being? What does the 'post-neurotic' subject look like, if one exists?
@@OH-pc5jx It doesn't do anything. This subject no longer has fantasy as a separate reserve space but has it integrated into its social reality. So this subject is more committed to the public world and less concerned with protecting its private realm. I think that's the key.
When Lacan said "the phallus indicates the enjoyment given up as a subject with a symbolic identity", this reference is to an imaginary phallus given up by symbolic castration for a boy, who then progress to have the symbolic phallus and girls to identify being the symbolic phallus.
Then, he said this symbolic phallus is "the signifier of the desire of the Other" and the signifier of jouissance", presumably enjoyment of the One or the Self, I suppose, given the Other normally refers to the feminine whilst the One or the Self refers to the masculine, identified as having the phallus.
Essentially, the enjoyment is the One who is having the phallus, so the enjoyment CAN'T be senseless, can it?
maybe todd’s point would be that nobody can *have* the phallus because of its lack of signified? like in the film where the dude shoots the snake, he doesn’t really embody phallic power; the sunglasses are the phallus, and the adoption of them by the man is the man’s attempt to invoke and evoke some power in the symbolic phallus, in the symbolic identity of masculinity. what i am getting at is that i think there is something at work between the implicit castration of the phallus and the adoption of this inherently empty and lacking symbolic identity to try and embody power.
please correct me if i’m wrong or feel free to respond. im very new to psychoanalysis and lacanian theory so i would appreciate any insight into the concept of the phallus.
reached further into the video and also wanted to add that maybe the investment in the phallus is the investment in symbolic presence. maybe this investment gives way to the idea that there is an other subject out there that *really has* this power the phallus is supposed to provide. in The Sublime Object of Ideology, Žižek mentions that a king who believes he really is a king is just as mad as a psychotic who believes they are a king. the king adopts this inherently lacking Master Signifer as a symbol of power. in the same manner, the investment in the belief of some Other who *has* phallic power carries with it, as a prerequisite, a belief in the phallus as non-castrated.
I come back to this video often as a way of reminding myself Lacan is understandable when approached in the right way. The clip from Mulholland Drive made me think about how drag queens, who are themselves playing with the absurdity of the phallus and signification, so often lip sync in their routines
Yes.
todd will you adopt me please
"Is the Phallus White Skin?""
-Patricia Huntington
What a wonderful 22 minutes. Thank you.
I see why one would say this, but the phallic signifier is an effect of the structure of language, which is not simply the province of whiteness.
shame/loss=oblivion?
so circumcision's in Lacan's view? what about circumcision then and now(porn, maybe some person with a penisgets circumcised later in life or for porn...)?
tEoftPS=tEoSenselessness tryna make heads or tails...so the shame/loss of EotS = oblivion?
If you accept the ABSENCE as objectively real by recognising its lack, then you must also accept the PRESENCE as objectively real by acknowledging the existence of the substance or essence that forms the presence.
By claiming the substance that forms the presence as a deception, is essentially denying truth or reality, which sounds absurdly nonsensical.
Example, it's like accepting darkness or enjoying ignorance as real but refusing to acknowledge that brightness and knowledge as real because for some warped reason(s), you believe the presence of light and information is a deception or not real. Claiming ignorance is bliss? 😉
How can you rationalise such nonsense? You can't make sense out of such senseless suppositions.
So the first rule of fight club is that there can be no feminine fight club?
Interesting question, but I think I would say the opposite, that fight club involves a group of men taking up the feminine position. This is at least what Anna Kornbluh argues in her (great) little book on Marxist Film Theory and Fight Club
@@toddmcgowan8233 Thanks for the Anna Kornbluh signpost. 🌈🧠
Realy is a great little book! 😄
First you claim phallus is not a garden variety signifier as it signifies everything signified as such it essentially signifies the signification process itself.
Then, you contradict the initial statement by claiming signification is castration and claim phallus signifies castration.
So is the phallus this master (unrestricted) signifier OR the phallus is a very restricted signifier ONLY signifying castration. Both statements are paradoxical to each other, aren't they?
wait so obvs phallus can be negative and positive so feminism must be anti phallic, not negative phallic. or feminism is not negative phallocentrism, feminism is sans phallus.
Tuareg men traditionally wear turbans and veil their faces and are very proud of this tradition. For them, this is an emblem of their masculinity. Their women aren't veiled. Exception to every rule, or is this theory just BS?
The phallus can play its role only when veiled. It seems to me like men and women are both always veiled. One thinks that it is hiding something, whereas the other is hiding something. It's a question of self-deception.
Oh! Thank you for responding, I did not expect that at all. I thought that according to Lacan, the veil itself must be veiled, i.e. the hiding must be covert. In this culture, however, the men openly wear their mystery, as women would in a traditional Muslim society. I believe the Tuareg veil does have a kind of phallic value you describe though, because it signifies protection and mastery of the desert landscape, and may also reflect the special relationship between nothing/ something that you find in the Sahara. Travel/ mastery of this landscape is the domain of men, traditionally. @@toddmcgowan8233
WHY is the presence and masculinity a "deception", that makes absolutely NO sense???
"Symbolic phallus" indicates the underlying masculinity which is seen as dominant power, having agency, independence, courage, etc. essentially presence of positive qualities that are comprised of masculine traits. This presence is symbolised by men possessing or having the phallic symbol ( biologically the penis) whilst feminity is based on concept of absence. Ie positive & negative.
This is the fundamentals of sexual differences and difference in gender identity between men and women which then influence or society, culture, social structures, language, etc. including castration complex right?
WHY DO YOU CLAIM THIS PRESENCE IS A DECEPTION or SIMULATION. Is positivity in comparison to negativity a fallacy? Certainly not.
Sounds bizzare to deny the existence of presence. Care to explain your rationale?
I see the point. But it is not the presence of the phallus that is responsibility for the deception. It is deceptive (or a fraud) because the power that it asserts does not lie in the phallus itself but in the structure that subtends it. So every assertion of phallic power is really a testament to this other, structural power--and thus a testament to the impotence of the phallus itself.
@@toddmcgowan8233 CORRECT! However, the phallic is merely the symbolic and somewhat iconic signifier of the inherent masculine power comprising of dominance, aggression, leadership, authority, father figure, etc. Phallus on its own is not power but rather it is the signifier or power.
In other words when anyone says or refers to the phallic power, then it's a given that primarily refers to male dominance, autonomy & other forms of masculine power that influence and shape the social, political, economic fabric of society, often subconsciously, including the architectural landscape of man made structures and buildings ie pillars, columns, towers, etc. which all in wholeness forms "the masculine" best represented by the PHALLUS.
So, in essence given all males possess a penis, the male organ of copulation, the masculine power that manifest in males is most appropriately and expectedly is symbolised as the phallus or any phallic objects either consciously or unconsciously.
Moreover, both male and female sexuation, sexulity, gender roles and functions are determined either by the presence of absence of the penis, which forms the basis in symbolism of the phallus.
Strictly speaking this "male presence" can be even the "Y chromosome" at a genetic level or androgens at a hormonal level BUT given the penis somehow, is the most tangible, conspicuously visible and sexually distinctive structure, it forms the basis of any phallic symbol. So, the possessor of the phallus becomes the agent that embodies the power.
Interestingly, the feminine which primarily represents "the absence" also is equally important as empty spaces, fields, lands, valleys, houses, ships, etc. are often associated with the feminine. Absence or negative doesn't necessarily indicate there's no value or function.
Just as pillars which provide support, protection and structure is functionally and somewhat visibly associated with the masculine.
So, I'm just confuse as to what exactly is this "deception" you speak of, especially when referring to masculinity as a deception or fraudulent. It's anything but a deception, perhaps the presence of a "differentiated distinction" sexually in comparison to femininity but surely NOT a deception per se. Why deception? I don't get it at all.
In fact, it's very physically or symbolically appropriate and even biologically relevent to the psychological manifestations of every phallic related structures or concepts we encounter in our daily lives.
@@hunkarun lmfao 🤣