God: the Lacanian Other.

[anthropo-eccentricis (anthropo-eccentricism)]

Lacan: “desire is always desire for the Other.” The wholly, impossibly transcendent Other, pace Derrida and Levinas, is God. Desire is a response to a certain non-knowledge of the desire of the Other. This non-knowledge is Lacan’s objet a, the cause of the object of desire. The object of desire is an opening onto the actual desire of the Other. The anxiety of non-knowledge is unbearable, and so the subject fantasizes knowledge, speaking through symptom. Lacan asks us to imagine standing before a female praying mantis without knowing whether we are wearing the mask of a female or male. As is well-known, the female devours the male after mating with him. This is the anxiety before the Other, this is the objet a. The resultant symptom can be thought accordingly as a way of surmounting the enigma by way of the reactionary formation of a hypothesis that concerns the desire of the Other. Desire, we might say, embodies our non-knowledge with respect to the Other’s desire. Embodied in all relation is the sense that despite the fact that we are being addressed by the Other, we nonetheless do not know why the Other is addressing us. Put differently, we do not know the desire that animates the Other’s relation to us.

It is this non-knowledge with respect to the desire of the Other that generates the fantasy and the symptom. Within the Lacanian framework, the fantasy is not so much a wish for something we lack, but is rather an answer to the enigma of the Other’s desire. Fantasy, we could say, is a hypothesis as to what the Other desires. Through fantasy, the anxiety the subject encounters in the face of the enigma of the Other’s desire is thereby minimized. Even where the fantasy is relatively disagreeable, the answer to the enigma of the Other’s desire is nonetheless preferable to the anxiety-provoking non-knowledge of that desire. Consequently, it stands to reason that before the specter of the absolute Other, the transcendent God, one speaks in torrents, symptomatically. One hallucinates in doctrine, imagines in scripture, desires in belief.

Religion: a desire for the Other, before the Other. What the properly faithful believer requires is a skilled analyst capable of uncoiling the mess of anxiety that lies dormant within the mangled unconscious of the subject. Of course, when one symptom is made to disappear, another often emerges. Silence is difficult, and the object-cause prefers to enunciate. Nietzsche: in what way we, too, are still pious. The shadow of god, and so on. More symptoms of the same, eternal object-cause. The believer: a neurotic, and nothing besides. And yet, there is a sense in which the symptom is projected onto the very being of the Other and made to function as a system of actual properties. As Žižek puts it, “[t]he role of fantasy [is to] mediate between the formal symbolic structure and the positivity of objects we encounter in reality—that is to say, it provides a ‘schema’ according to which certain positive objects in reality can function as objects of desire, filling in the empty places opened up by the formal symbolic structure”. And when we substitute for the intersubjective Other the wholly transcendent, Levinasian Other, we get what I take to be a relatively compelling picture of religious belief. The fantasy is that which recedes into the background while structuring one’s relation to the Other. As such, fantasy creates an effect whereby the manner in which fantasy transforms the anxiety of non-knowledge experienced before the Other into actual properties that are ascribed to the Other appears to result entirely from the Other itself, and not from the subject’s desire.

[omar]

You rush to place God in that place, but the “Other” is a general term that may well mean simply “what-we-are-not” and “who-we-are-not”. In this more modest form, you could say that God is a form of an Other, that it serves as an Other, that It is the transcendental Other, as well as saying here that God is what we are not and who we are not. And yet this God is so much like us, like any Other, that we may have a communication with it. The tension exist in this Other being completely transcendental or too familiar to satisfy our desire for the Other. We desire very mundane things, very human needs. God is in the end a simple effect of our will, our craving for that Other, for that which we are not. And through Him, we supposedly achieve the Other.
I always remember a service about to end in a baptist church. The pastor thank the visitors and then asks them if they know where they will spend eternity. That place is the too familiar. It is Hell, it is death, it is suffering- that which we are well experienced with. But now it is presented as an alternative; not now, but in an unseen future. the pastor flesshes the vision, turns up the heat, and throws in the Other, that which we are not.
The desire for the other is not always or necessarily satisifed by God alone. God is but one effect of the same phenomenon. The Other is other people, it is health, wealth, overall properity, beauty. We desire people, we desire our parents, our children, our spouses, we are jealous of them and can be possessive. And we we are not it is usually because something else has become that Other, like drugs.
So, I don’t disagree that God is an established Other, but that Lacan and Others did not create the term in a theological spirit.

[turtle]

my god is not a he, she, or it…
my god is not about heaven and hell…
my god is not about killing…
my god is about being a good person…

[anthropo-eccentricis (anthropo-eccentricism)]

@omar

So, I don’t disagree that God is an established Other, but that Lacan and Others did not create the term in a theological spirit.

Indeed, for if they did, my post would amount to no more than a redundant exegesis. Shifting the terms of Lacan’s discourse of the Other, including within it the Levinasian/Derridian Other—that is, the wholly transcendent, the impossibly Other—is what I sought to accomplish with this thread. If we take God to be the Other, in this respect, then we can make something rather novel of Lacan’s refrain that desire is always desire for the Other.

[Typist]

A lesson from the world of publishing…

We judge the book by the cover, as the saying goes. As so web sites, print magazines, TV shows, and other media create fancy packaging to surround the actual content.

A good way to test for quality content is to strip away the packaging to see what if anything is left. As example, the CNN anchor might email his coming story to his editor to see if the story can stand on it’s own two feet without all the fancy CNN graphics supporting it.

Within the philosophy genre slick packaging comes in the form of fancy language. Fancy language is acceptable in a first draft, as the purpose of a first draft is to capture the live spark of the moment. A mature writer/thinker will then seek the assistance of an editor, or subject their piece to their own ruthless surgery.

1. Enjoy the glorious sound of fancy language privately, and then…

2. Chuck it all overboard, and…

3. Discover what remains.

A good exercise is to submit articles to some outlet with strict length limits, such as the Letters To The Editor section of the local paper. If we have no choice but to say it in just 300 readily accessible words, we are forced to learn what it is we’re really trying to say.

The original poster will now claim I’m off topic. I’m proposing that fancy language, packaging for the sake of packaging, is the real topic of this thread.

[anthropo-eccentricis (anthropo-eccentricism)]

Not only are you off-topic, but you’re also misguidedly condescending. I am no stranger to the publishing world, both academic and not. Actually, for my age, I’m really rather handsomely published. But that’s irrelevant. If you can’t understand the post, then don’t comment on it. I’m sure there are a variety of posts on the Natural Sciences board that invoke terms, concepts—and, yes, styles of articulation—with which I’m unfamiliar. The difference is that I don’t loudly justify my lack of comprehension in the form of a criticism, as if the fault lay outside of me. Ressentiment. I imagine you might be trying to carry out some hilarious vendetta against me, a vendetta that was born the instant you understood the differences between us. To rationalize the intellectual gap that separates us, you conceptualized me as one more arrogant youth to be given his lumps. When you so utterly failed in your endeavour, you proceeded to vomit your frustration all over my threads. And I’ll concede a regrettable and sometimes infantile disposition to do the same, on occasion, but there remains one pointed and unavoidable difference that separates what it is you’re capable of from what it is that I am: I can write. Now, please: go away.

[Typist]

Not only are you off-topic,

Propose the opposite…

but you’re also misguidedly condescending.

Condescending yes, arrogant yes, pompous fatheaded old hot air blowhard, yes.

Misguided no.

I am no stranger to the publishing world, both academic and not. Actually, for my age, I’m really rather handsomely published. But that’s irrelevant.

Agreed.

If you can’t understand the post, then don’t comment on it.

I understood the post quite well, a college sophomore attempt to look fancy and sophisticated. You are very clearly intelligent, educated and articulate, and thus don’t need to strive so mightily to appear so.

I’m sure there are a variety of posts on the Natural Sciences board that invoke terms, concepts—and, yes, styles of articulation—with which I’m unfamiliar. The difference is that I don’t loudly justify my lack of comprehension in the form of a criticism, as if the fault lay outside of me. Ressentiment.

Again, I feel like I understand the post just fine. What’s annoying you is that I see the real story, and am declining to buy the cover story. You don’t need the cover story, it’s just getting in the way of what otherwise might be a great post.

I imagine you might be trying to carry out some hilarious vendetta against me, a vendetta that was born the instant you understood the differences between us.

You are posting your thoughts in a public forum, a philosophy forum, where comment, reply and critique are the established norms. And I’m doing the same. By doing so, we are both offering our thoughts and words up for review. None of us are obligated to be the applauding audience for the other, that has to be earned by each of us. You are not applauding my writing, and I am not whining about it.

To rationalize the intellectual gap that separates us, you conceptualized me as one more arrogant youth to be given his lumps.

True. This is all part of evolution, so it should interest you. I’m the old ape in the forest, and you are the young ape. Some day soon you will take my place, but not until I have fulfilled my obligation to make you work for it. Not making you work for it would result in you being a soft old ape, easy pickings for the young punk apes to come, and be assured they are coming.

When you so utterly failed in your endeavour, you proceeded to vomit your frustration all over my threads.

Speaking of vomiting frustrations… C’mon man, grow up, somebody challenged you on an Internet forum. Nothing could be more ordinary. Get over it, and on with it.

And I’ll concede a regrettable and sometimes infantile disposition to do the same, on occasion,

See? We are brothers, regrettable and infantile. Face it, accept it, make peace with it, and then we’ll have some fun.

but there remains one pointed and unavoidable difference that separates what it is you’re capable of from what it is that I am: I can write.

Indeed, you can write. So stop trying so hard to prove it. All the trying is what’s signaling to the readers that you’re young and not yet fully confident. You’re smart, you have interesting things to say. Just say them, no need for the trumpets.

Now, please: go away.

See the section of the manual entitled: Scroll bars

You are fully in control of your own reading and writing experience here at all times, and thus fully responsible for whatever is happening inside of your own head.

The urge to push away a jerk like me is entirely understandable, but not rational. There is an infinite army of jerks extending over the horizon in all directions, way too many for any of us to ever manage. Thus, reason instructs us it’s much more logical to focus on managing the one brain we actually have some control over.

Manage 100,000 brains, or manage one? Your choice.

PS: No fancy words were needed in the sharing of this message.

[turtle]

typist this could get interesting…
i noticed that you may have said something that is very questionable…you typed something to the effect that we are fully responsible for all the things inside our heads…

we are held responsible for our behavior…

but maybe we are not fully responsible for our thoughts…

[omar]

@anthropo-eccentricism

@omar

So, I don’t disagree that God is an established Other, but that Lacan and Others did not create the term in a theological spirit.

Indeed, for if they did, my post would amount to no more than a redundant exegesis. Shifting the terms of Lacan’s discourse of the Other, including within it the Levinasian/Derridian Other—that is, the wholly transcendent, the impossibly Other—is what I sought to accomplish with this thread. If we take God to be the Other, in this respect, then we can make something rather novel of Lacan’s refrain that desire is always desire for the Other.

What is the enhancement? I can see that it is a “novel” take, but is it better in any arguable way? I can agree with Levinas on the ethical relation of man with the Other as being more fundamental than the I-It relation. But I disagree with your pathologization of desire for the transcendental. If anything what happens is what happens most often in relations between the I and any typical other, which is that there is a willfull desire to become an It. We are another person’s "Other and even the Other of that infinite God. Some have argued that it is not just that man seeks God but that God seeks man. This is not just fantasy, but a translation of how we perceive a stable existence, our existence.
Now, as I said, we are the Other to an-Other, but in an encounter, what we face is not a Manthis, and what we wear is not a Manthis mask. rather we wear what the Other is wearing, for a face, and even as they are a mystery to us, we in turn are a mystery to them. It is as if we were looking at a mirror. That Other is an image of us. It is therefore not entirely alien, not entirely impossible. We crave wholeness, integrity. Our perception is the message of integrity, continuity, wholeness. We move in the world by making judgments, predictions, which rely on the limited cognition of variation. Instead we naturally collect experiences of the eternal. Add to this language, which by one picture seeks to offer one message. Metaphors work because of the implicit intention of language to be normally whole. A hole on the ground is not just that but the vagina in which the seed is placed. But the inseminated and the simile are not unlimitedly other, alien to each other. We create a “public space”, were the subject shares in a mode of being, at the very least, with an other. the genesis of ethics is that fantazy of empathy, sympathy. We are therefore not in the precense of an other like blank slates, but come, by our nature, imbeded with messages about the other.
God?
The desire is not just for God the Other but God ourselves.

[turtle]

omar what does that mean to you???

“the desire is not just god the other but god ourselves”—it doesnt sound like fantasy but something you are trying to say about omar…

[omar]

@turtle

omar what does that mean to you???

“the desire is not just god the other but god ourselves”—it doesnt sound like fantasy but something you are trying to say about omar…

I am human, and therefore I am included in the history of mankind. as this history is almost without exception, accompanied by the Divine, to that extend, when I say something about about humans and God, I am saying something about “ourselves”. Don’t over-analyse, or you end up projecting a prejudice.

[Moreno]

@anthropo-eccentricism

Lacan: “desire is always desire for the Other.” The wholly, impossibly transcendent Other, pace Derrida and Levinas, is God. Desire is a response to a certain non-knowledge of the desire of the Other. This non-knowledge is Lacan’s objet a, the cause of the object of desire…

Desire, at least sometimes, seems to be about getting to an experience. Sometimes it even happens. So desire is either about immanent things OR one can reach transcendant ‘things’, including the Other. Not non-knowledge, but a fullness of desire that transforms through some kind of intimacy. Desire not as the origin of dukka, or some kind of lack (non-knowledge or even non-expeciencing now) but a kind of life-fullness that can lead to another full state, that of satisfaction.