"WHERE THE FUCK IS THE BACTINE!!"

In her extremely detailed and lucid guest post, Shelden explores Lacan’s metonymic model of desire, which suggests that we can never access the object of our desire, the objet petit a.  As Shelden states, “in desire, one always only approaches the object of desire but never quite reaches it. Or, if you do finally get the object of your desire, the boy or girl or iPhone of your dreams, you will inevitably find that the thing or person you thought you wanted turns out to be not as good as you thought.”  Thus, one is forced to keep desiring and chasing what one believes will fill the void constituted by the system of the Symbolic, and as we all know, completely satisfying this void is impossible.  We have all been in a situation when we’ve achieved something we’ve desired for a long time, and our desire for the item ends up unsatisfied.  This got me thinking: what if we could fill this void?  If we were capable of fulfilling every desire we could possibly construct for ourselves, what would life be like? 

One of my favorite comic books, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, showed what this impossibility would look like.  In JtHM #6, Johnny accidentally kills himself and, through a clerical error, goes to heaven for a brief time.  In heaven, everybody is seen sitting perfectly motionless and apparently tranquil.  Johnny asks his heavenly tour guide (Damned Elise) for an explanation as to why nobody is doing anything, and she replies that the souls in Heaven do not desire anything.  They feel perfectly fulfilled, and thus do not NEED to do anything, hence the sitting.  Damned Elise also explains that one’s entrance to heaven imbues one with the psychic power to explode the heads of others, a talent which Johnny discovers is great fun and leads to his expulsion from heaven.  If it were possible to truly feel fulfilled, we would simply sit around not feeling the desire for anything.  This could only happen until one felt hungry or sleepy.  Without the desire to eat or to sleep, one would die.  Thus, without the search to fulfill one’s desire, one cannot live (hence the French ‘le petit mort,’ or ‘little death’). 

Although an orgasm is certainly an effective tool for destroying one’s sense of self, it is not the only physical outlet which directs human subjects away from Symbolic and Imaginary coherence.  Extreme physical pain performs this same task just as effectively, if not more so based on the potential for long periods of extreme pain.  Generally speaking, an orgasm lasts for a maximum of 60 seconds, and usually hovers somewhere around 15 to 20 seconds.  An orgasm is also sought after by most sexually active people during sexual activity.  It is considered the ultimate merge with, and connection to, a partner.  Pain, on the other hand, is the ultimate separation of partners.  In an instance where somebody is inflicting pain upon another, there is no positive emotional connection between the two.  Extreme pain is not sought after by most people (and when I say extreme pain, I mean blinding, white-hot, speechless, world-crushing pain), and has no established time frame (as opposed to the limitations of an orgasm’s lifespan). 

During a period of extreme pain (such as, for example, the first moment of a bad burn), one cannot bring to mind any facts about one’s own life or.  This is so because pain erases one’s sense of self, or as Shelden states, ”You are no longer thinking about what you need to do, who you think you are, or even where you are.”  Of course, Shelden is referring to an orgasm’s power to make one “forget the world for the sake of sexual release.”  I assume she is referring to a truly intense, genuine, volcanically hot orgasm, as opposed to a faked or ‘performed’ orgasm.  Perhaps this relationship between an orgasm and physical pain is the seed behind the oft-referenced ‘fine line between pleasure and pain.’

Shelden’s exploration of the relationship between sexual satisfaction and the concept of identity intrigued me.  It brought to mind the fact that priests, yogis, and other such figures searching for a ‘wholeness’ often embrace celibacy in their daily lives.  I attempted to find an article expounding upon this, and I ended up finding this gem.  It’s precious.  Although the article has many (many many) flaws to it, this sentence caught my eye: “To remain celibate even during an intimate relationship requires tremendous self-control, self-discipline, self-understanding and years of experience with celibacy.”  That’s a lot of ‘self’ for one sentence.  I found it interesting how, with the lack of sexual satisfaction, the sense of ‘self’ is supposed to become clearer or more in-tune.  This is exactly what Shelden says in her post (although the article says it backwards from Shelden), when she states that “sexual satisfaction and identity are thus completely contradictory.”  One cannot have both. 

Shelden’s post delves into the concepts of desire and sexual satisfaction.  What, then, is the relationship between desire and pleasure?  It is assumed that, upon fulfilling one’s desire, one attains pleasure from whatever it is that has fulfilled one’s desire.  However, according to Shelden (and Lacan), the pleasure from fulfilling desire is impossible to achieve due to the impossibility of fulfilling desire in the first place.  Any pleasure from supposedly fulfilling one’s desire is temporary, and thus the desire was never fulfilled in the first place.  Lacan posits that “the inability to be satisfied by the object of desire maintains the lack in the subject, a void that can never be filled.”  Does it follow, then, that the only possible pleasure which can truly be achieved is through the act of an orgasm?  If one’s desire can never be fulfilled, then the pleasure of fulfillment is a myth.  An orgasm, one’s “petit mort,” temporarily destroys the sense of self through intense pleasure.  Is this form of pleasure the only genuine pleasure we can achieve?

A Reading of the Film "Derrida"

       There is definitely irony in trying to capture the “true” Derrida in a documentary film because everything about it is fake. A documentary cannot truly capture the rawness of a person simply because a real person isn’t used to a camera. When a camera is presented in
front of you, you tend to censor your true self because of your awareness of it.
I believe the directors are aware of this because of Derrida’s comment about
how he presents a cleaned up version of himself in front of them instead of
staying in his pajamas all day which he usually does. A documentary is a lot
like an elementary school photo. The photo is used to capture the moment of
your youth so years down the road you can look at it and remember times of your
youth and what you looked like. Yet the photo does not capture the truth of who
you were back then because your given the date of the photo your mother combs
your hair a special way and makes you wear a dress or bow tie but does that really
capture the truth of your youth? No. It captures a moment in time where you’re
your cleaned up self smiling for a picture that captures nothing real or true
about who you are. The directors know this and do not try to make the film into
something it’s not. The directors are just as essential as Derrida is. They become
a part of the film because Derrida doesn’t try to pretend they are not there.

      Derrida is depicted through image because most of the documentary is centering upon his
image. His image is whatever he feels that day. Some days he seems apprehensive
where other days he is happier to share the inside workings of his mind.  Another way of looking at his image is through the self portrait oil painting in the museum. He is asked to look at himself causes him to become anxious. The images of himself conflict because of how
different people see him. He cannot depict himself through image because like
he states in the film one cannot see how you look, it is others who see you
better.

         Throughout the interview process Derrida does seem uneasy but it’s understandable, and this makes him easy to relate to and a likable figure.  I think if he went into the interview process and spit out answers instead of quietly collecting himself before hand it would have made him look pompous. Every answer he gives is well thought out and intriguing. There is some disconnection in the interview but I think it’s only because of Derrida's brilliancy. When asked the question about love he shows a hesitance only because he’s being honest and
cannot answer the question the way the interviewer asks it. After the
interviewer rewords it, Derrida gives yet another brilliant answer and makes
the interview a success. If there wasn’t any disconnect it would seem too
practiced and not as real as all the interviews turned out. So in this case the
disconnect between the interviewer and interviewee functions in a compelling way.

    A specific part of the film where I connected "Structure, Sign, and Play" was when
Derrida was asked to talk about love and what it means.  He connected this concept to love by deconstructing it. The play between love and narcissism is what demonstrates that there is no center.

     Through Derrida’s film it felt like I got to pick a part a brilliant mind. Listening to
Derrida answer some of the most profound questions really was eye
opening. I especially loved how he said eyes are a part of the body that doesn’t
age and one’s act of seeing has no age. I just think that is such a wonderful
concept that I never thought about yet can relate to.  It was really kind of beautiful.  The general sense I got out of Derrida’s theories were that they were all collectively thought out and each one of them connect to "Structure, Sign and Play" and ultimately the deconstruction of language.

The Relative Position

Structuralist theory helps us to understand that language is paramount to our existence.  In Saussure’s essay, “Course in General Linguistics,” he states that “There are no pre-existing ideas and nothing is distinct before language” (34).  Without language, we have nothing.  There is no recognition or comprehension of the world without the language necessary to name and compare things to one another, and the terms we use are completely arbitrary.  
Saussure goes on to explain that within language, there are three fundamental pieces.  The sign (the term we recognize), the signifier (the sound image) and the signified (the mental concept).  For example:

Let us say that a flower, perhaps an orchid, is our sign.  

The signifier, or sound-image, is the sounds that form the word orchid.

The signified, or mental concept, is the idea of an orchid and it is unrelated to an actual orchid, but they cannot be separated from one another.

Signs consist of the signified combined with the signifier, and signs constitute language. Without the mental concept of an orchid, and the sound-image of said orchid, we could not recognize the plant as an orchid.  We would not recognize it at all.  Because language is a system of differences without positive terms, there is no essential value of a sign.  If we did not have the sign "orchid" we would understand it in relation to other things around it.  An orchid is not a butterfly, and an orchid is also not a dandelion.  We can name it as a flower because there are other flowers similar to it, which speaks to another point of Saussure's: signs function not through their intrinsic value but through their relative position.

Signs are given meaning through their position within a structure of differences.  Saussure's famous example is of the 8:25 train.  It doesn't arrive or depart at 8:25, and perhaps the 8:25 train is a bus, but we still recognize it as the 8:25 train because it comes between the 7:25 and 9:25 trains.  Without the 7:25 and 9:25 trains, there would be no point of comparison for the 8:25 train.  It is only the 8:25 train because it is not the 7:25 or 9:25 train.

Another example of this could perhaps be given through a paradigmatic chain.  

fetus  infant  toddler  child  adolescent  adult

The shift in title from one stage of development to the next is based upon several things: age, activity, ability, etc.  An infant is an infant because they are no longer inside the womb (as a fetus would be) but they cannot do anything for themselves, like walk or begin to speak like a toddler.  Likewise, an adolescent is an adolescent because they have gained far more independence than a child, but they are not fully grown and  (supposedly) responsible like an adult.  Because of differences, we can determine which category a person falls into.  There is no value without comparison or exchange.  Signs mean nothing without other signs within the same system of language.  Outside of the language that signs exist within, they can only have meaning if there is a point of comparison, as explained with Saussure's example of the French mouton with the English mutton and sheep.
The signs we utilize, and their relationships to one another, as well as the relationship between the signified and signifier are arbitrary. Simplistically, you could argue that the word used for one thing could have been used for another thing.  The signifier (sound-image) of "orchid" has nothing to do with the plant. The orchid doesn't simply pop out of the ground and say "Hey world, I'm an orchid" (clearly, because orchids are plants and they don't have consciousness and therefore they do not have access to language but that is another story entirely).  It could have easily been named potato, cat, gobbeldigook, etc.  


In discussing the arbitrary nature of signs, I think of something rather silly.  A friend of mine takes issue with the term eggplant.  An eggplant, he says, is not shaped like an egg, and it doesn't resemble an egg in any way. He argues that oranges are called oranges, because they're orange, and since eggplants are purple, they should be called purples, and every time he eats eggplant he says "Mmm, that's a mighty delicious purple, it must be prime purple season."  As silly and comical as my friend's position on eggplant may be, I am not too quick to discredit it.  He has taken an issue with the sign eggplant, and the lack of connection between the sound-image "eggplant" and his mental concept of eggplant.  There is no essential value in the term eggplant, and we know eggplants as eggplants because they are not zucchini, and they are not oranges.


As for "The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure" by the Magnetic Fields, the lyric "You can't use a bulldozer to study orchids" deals with the complexity of language.  The lyric appears at the end of a verse, which goes as follows: 

I met Ferdinand de Saussure on a night like this

On love, he said, I'm not so sure I even know what it is

No understanding, no closure, it is a nemesis

You can't use a bulldozer to study orchids, he said so

Love is a concept, and as the song suggests there is little understanding of it and all of it's complexities. "I'm not so sure I even know what it is," illustrates that it is impossible to understand love, and because it is so complex, it is fair to surmise that there are many mental concepts for which love signifies.  Love has no intrinsic meaning or value, and therefore cannot have a universal meaning.  The complexities of love are supposed to be what makes it beautiful, somewhat like an orchid, and in using a bulldozer to study an orchid you would undoubtedly destroy it, much like assigning a universal meaning to love would destroy it (whatever it is). 
The rest of the song goes as follows: 

We don't know anything

You don't know anything

I don't know anything

About love

And we are nothing

You are nothing

I am nothing

Without love

I'm just a great composer and not a violent man

But I lost my composure and I shot Ferdinand

Crying, it's well and kosher to say you don't understand

But this is for Holland Dozier Holland, his last words were

We don't know anything

You don't know anything

I don't know anything

About love

But we are nothing

You are nothing

I am nothing

Without love

His fading words were

We don't know anything

You don't know anything

I don't know anything

About love

But we are nothing

You are nothing

I am nothing

Without love 

The line concerning Holland-Dozier-Holland refers to a Motown songwriting team that often wrote about love, but they didn't provide any sort of meaning.  They wrote songs like, "Stop! In the Name of Love!" and "You Can't Hurry Love."  Holland-Dozier-Holland wrote about why love hurts so much, and what you have to do to obtain it.  Saussure is correct in saying that we know nothing about love, because it is something that can't be understood through language, but the artist may be suggesting that although we know not what it means, we need to embrace that it exists.