As someone recommended, I read this article about Lacan's "objet petit a".
As much as I doubt the usefulness of psychoanalysis, it was an interesting read and I think I more or less understand what is the "objet petit a": it's the carrot in the carrot & stick metaphor of life, created by the idea of original jouissance that never was and that we try to see and find everywhere. Fair enough, I am not sure what to do with that, but we can call it objet petit a, and I can see why it can be interesting to study.
Now, the issue is that the quotes and explanations make very heavy use of metaphors and analogies, which is fine and all (altough at some point, I think you should be able to extract the substance of the point you are trying to make in all the metaphors), until I start noticing that there are metaphors and analogies that do not make any sense. Then, I start wondering if you tried to trick me along, or if you had no idea what you were talking about?
So we have here the structure of the Moebius strip: the subject is correlative to the object, but in a negative way — subject and object can never ‘meet’; they are in the same place, but on opposite sides of the Moebius strip.
At the very end of the article the author uses this quote from Žižek. Now, Žižek, you know what is the entire point of a Moebius strip? It only has one side. So saying that they are "on opposite sides" is nonsensical. And if you really want to use something that is a strip and has sides? Use a cylinder. Oh yeah, doesn't sound as cool as Moebius strip. I tried to see if there was any specific property of the Moebius strip that would make sense in this context, I couldn't find one.
the more Coke you drink, the thirster you are
No Žižek, I don't get thirstier the more I drink coke, it's still mostly water, what the hell? But ok, I'm nitpicking there, I get what he is trying to say, it's just... annoying.
One never knows what might suddenly come over her and make her shut her trap. That’s what the mother’s desire is. Thus, I have tried to explain that there was something that was reassuring. I am telling you simple things, I am improvising, I have to say. There is a roller, made out of stone of course, which is there, potentially, at the level of her trap, and it acts as a restraint, as a wedge. It’s what is called the phallus. It’s the roller that shelters you, if, all of a sudden, she closes it.
The two previous quotes were straight up wrong but this one from Lacan is more subtle, in the sense that I can't tell if it's wrong, or right, or anything, because, what the hell? Seriously, what does this even mean? How does this help understand what the object petit a is? What is the point of this?
Anyway, I'm criticizing Lacan and Žižek here but let's be honest they are far from being the only ones guilty of that. The Moebius one irritated me a lot though. I think some philosophers should spend more time focusing on clarity and less on trying to sound clever cough Hegel cough.
Maaaaan im gonna sum this up in some plain ass language that has some very occult roots.
Why are these roots occult?
The point being made stretches across the ordinary rational desires of man, wayyyy fuckin up at the 7th chakra with ordinary survival responses, waaaaaay down at the root chakra, in the case of uranus, anyway gigglesnortschratchratchratchaatchSHNIFF ... it is difficult to cross all of that territory when you're doing the high-wire act of making a philosophical point, so some times you just have to bullshit your way through.
In the case of coke, a desire which is never sated, fully memetic in origin.
In the case of Lacan, shut her up with some D, it works even with Mother.
Both are essentially saying that the roots of man, and his condition, occupy territory which we, in our high-minded ideals, never speak of and dare never explore.