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.

  • Ectrayn [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    But this is not what he says, he says

    subject and object can never ‘meet’; they are in the same place, but on opposite sides of the Moebius strip.

    He is saying opposite sides of the Moebius strip. And if what you say is what he means (which might be the cases), then, well, my point exactly: you said it much more clearly, without needing to use a questionable unclear metaphor that leaves way too much room for interpretation (and at the same time lots of room to say "no, you see, that's not what I meant")

    • the_river_cass [she/her]
      ·
      4 years ago

      (and at the same time lots of room to say “no, you see, that’s not what I meant”)

      would it really be Zizek otherwise? but yeah, I take your point.

    • Leftoid [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I feel, here, scratch, that Žižek is trying to explain something that may be forbidden to say, but if based Slavoj can make dick jokes in front of feminists and have them still buy his book, fine, I'll spend some social credit on this post. In chan terminology this is called an effort post, and mentioning the chans is what we call revealing one's power level...but the Trumpkins get really baked when you mention Slavoj, and I enjoy his shitposting style, so pardon the slightly parallax view. IM ENJOYING MY NEURODIVERSITY HERE, FOLKS

      One place this moebius strip idea comes up is here the term itself is used in three sentences....to quote

      We would thus oppose the logic of universal human rights and the logic of social hierarchy as the two sides of a Moebius strip, and focus on their point of intersection, the point at which, if we progress far enough on the side of universal human rights, we will find ourselves at the opposite side of unjust hierarchy, and vice versa.

      If I am resolving this sentence correctly, and retaining all inherited context from the loosely correlated references, I arrive at my own synthesis. At some point the naturalistic ways in which man constructs his social hierarchy will clash, become diametrically opposed, inversions of, dialectically opposite with the egalitarian intentions of universal human rights.

      In short, incel is the point of exception at which advocates of hierarchy who oppose egalitarian human rights demand the most brutal egalitarian redistribution. And the way the Left should counteract this tendency is not to demand a more encompassing egalitarianism that would cover politico-economic life and sex; it should rather turn around the incel position and fight for its own Moebius strip reversal in which the universality of egalitarian human rights implies its own exception, its own reversal – the domain of sexuality which should by definition remain “unjust,” resisting the egalitarian logic of human rights. The fact that should be accepted in all its brutality is the ultimate incompatibility of sexuality and human rights.

      There's a point where Mehrwert is so perishable that it's true labor-cost cannot be appropriated by capital. You wouldn't go seizing the means of re-production, would you?

      We can easily recognize here yet again the reversal that characterizes the Moebius strip: the only way to reach emancipation is to progress to the end on the path of commodification, of self-objectivization, of turning oneself into a commodity.

      Here we arrive at the strange paradox, or, impossible position, or moebius strip, or klein bottle or hypercube or whatever of the grey area which is created when we put economic value on the social interaction which is copulation while at the same time intending to evenly distribute wealth. ---- A strange question is asked. Is being a star in bed a form of wealth? Is there such a notion as big dick privilege in excess of ordinary male privilege?