Staging the Other Scene

Candace Vogler

We were impatient with Lacan last week, probably more with "Signification of the
Phallus" than with our other two readings. He is almost impossible to read this
week.

What we want from him this week is the progression of graphs that are meant to
illustrate the form of unconscious activity that speaks in psychoanalytic session. But
the Hegel, the Copernicus, the loose talk about science—it is pretty thoroughly
intolerable.

I will say what I think is going on in this talk, beginning with the framing. Lacan has
been invited to address a group of philosophers. That is a different group of experts
than the group in the room when the room is filled to overflowing with
psychoanalysts and would-be psychoanalysts, all of whom know their Freud and are
interested in psychoanalytic speech situations. This room is full of people who know
their Hegel, understand themselves to be interested in truth and knowledge first and
foremost, can be presumed to have views about the history of science, and, in this
kind of gathering of philosophers, have studied dialectic.

The audience is always an audience of experts in Lacan's Seminar and in his written
lectures. The talking always operates on the basis of an assumption that the listeners
know a lot, but that they are listening because there is something they want to get
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from the one who speaks, something that will make sense to them because they
know what they know.

In this respect, the setting always mimics the psychoanalytic speech situation, where
the analyst knows something that will equip her to hear something that matters
when the analysand speaks, and the analysand speaks not knowing exactly what the
analyst will hear. That's how the basic encounter is staged in the psychoanalytic
speech situation, and it mimics something of the circumstances of an academic
lecture delivered to an advanced audience. It is how Lacan mimics the position of an
analysand when he speaks.

I mentioned last week that the hero of Hegel's Phenomenology is Geist, and that Geist
takes its character from the fact that it wants to know. On my reading, what
happens in the first pages of the lecture is roughly equivalent to conscious associative
speech on consciously available material. It's circling around an invocation of Freud.
What we're after from this piece is not that stuff, although it illustrates how one will
go astray very quickly if one gets mesmerized by the content of signifiers and starts
trying to map these contents to events or to specific thoughts. How is he reading
Hegel? Why does he mention Copernicus? What role does Darwin play in the
history of science that he's sketching? Going after answers to these questions will be
a little like trying to use the Wolf Man dream as a way of fixing the date of the
primal scene, or otherwise constructing a biographical narrative to explain how
things are now with Wolf Man. It's the relay of signifiers—the way that one moves
straight to another in associative speech—rather than what they signify, that's at
issue in Lacanian analysis.

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The material on linguistics is meant to explain the sense in which what Lacan is
trying to do is investigate a form of thinking that takes shape in speech, but not
according to the rules of conversational use of a natural language. It is thinking—it
operates in the way that language-in-use operates—and it relies upon some aspects of
language-in-use in its thinking. But it is unlike ordinary speech, even ordinary speech
of the kind expected at an extraordinary event like an academic conference.

I'm not sure how much Lacan we have, so I'm going to do a quick run-through of the
three registers of mental activity crucial to his account so that we have what we need
in order to navigate through the piece. The symbolic operates by means of signifiers.
The phallic function that we discussed last time belongs to the symbolic.

We met the imaginary last time in the brief discussion of the ego. Roughly, on my
reading, the imaginary operates on the presumption of coherence—that things will
make sense, that there will be an account that shows the sense of how things are. It
is, by far and away, the easiest register to understand because it relies upon all kinds
of sense-making activity. Freud's pleasure in accounting for all of the themes or
images in a dream report through associations is pleasure in the imaginary. Our
pleasure in translating Lacan's hideous way of talking into something that feels clear
is also pleasure in the imaginary. What feels clear, what seems thorough, what
strikes us as logical or reasonable—those satisfactions are imaginary. Part of what is
at stake in calling them imaginary is touched upon in the piece on mirror-image
identification that I said almost nothing about last time. In the visual field, we
encounter durable objects in space that have stable relations to each other and that
form a coherent picture—an image. If something in the image is unclear, we know
that we can move closer or farther away, walk around the thing, and so on to settle

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questions about what's there. Meaning, purpose, structure—these things are

supposed to be consistent, coherent, and well ordered. Note the phrase "supposed
to." That is a normative phrase. It says how things ought to be, not necessarily how
they are.

The normative aspect of the imaginary is tremendously important.

Among other things, anxiety—the crucial factor in psychoanalysis—is linked to the

sense that the subject isn't the way it is supposed to be. Jonathan says that
psychoanalysis begins from the understanding that we are all under pressure. That
pressure isn't like the pressure you measure in beginning chemistry or physics class.
It's not something you calculate like you calculate the volume of gas. It is, by
Lacan's light, fundamentally normative. And it is virtually omnipresent for anyone
who has her wits about her and isn't a very scary kind of psychotic. And what is
tracked by psychoanalysis, on Lacan's understanding, is the series of tactics and
moves by which a mind deals with the normative pressure.

The third register is the real—whatever resists symbolization. I kept using the
phrase "a brush against something threatening" last time. What is threatening is the
real. What's going on with the real? Basically, a phallic signifier—like "the boy will
come to nothing" or the image of what was in Irma's throat—marks the spot of a
brush against the real. Something threatening makes contact with the subject. The
subject produces a picture or a phrase to cover what is threatening. The threat is a
threat to the subject. If the threat makes contact by means of an illness or an injury,
it isn't so much the actual bodily damage that constitutes the threat as something
that humans do, as minded beings. So, the problem isn't that Freud's nose and

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mouth and throat are damaged because he smokes cigars and uses cocaine. The
problem is that the bodily wear-and-tear makes contact with the subject as a sore
spot showing itself in anxiety surfacing associatively in concern about the state of his
health, his own mortality, and having been censured for urging the medical benefits
of cocaine.

We are vulnerable creatures. If we believe the actuaries, there is a sense in which

our lives are at risk constantly. We don't normally pay much attention to any of it,
and a lot of it is not the kind of thing that we could so much as notice even if we
tried. That kind of threat is not the kind that involves something threatening
making contact with the subject as a trigger for anxiety. Having taken an oath to
tend to the health of others, and having one of them wind up with a brand new
serious health issue because she followed your example in using cocaine—that's
another matter entirely. The real functions as the permanent possibility of anxiety-
inducing threat. A "hole in the real" [682 (806)] happens when the permanent
possibility incites an instance of anxiety-inducing threat that is given a face, a sound,
a phrase—a signifier drawn from the treasure trove of signifiers—all the phrases and
images and words a subject can muster to at once mark that it is threatened and
begin packaging the anxiety triggered by the threat.

That the subject is threatened is why the subject stands "in submission to the
signifier" [682 (806)]. The subject receives the threat as addressed to the subject.
And, on my reading, qua threat addressed to the subject, the signifier marks the
sudden precipitation of normative pressure. It is found wanting in this respect. It is
inadequate. It is not what it is supposed to be. Something is amiss.

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Who says? Who says the subject is inadequate? The Big-'O'-Other—the whole
concatenation of standards in light of which the subject might be found wanting.
For a doctor, not just the state of his own health, but the health of his patients
provides endless possibilities for inadequacy. It is via normative pressure that Irma's
pains become Freud's anxiety. Of all the many possible places where the judgment
that Dr. Freud is as he ought to be might come under threat, Irma's ongoing
psychological troubles registered as Otto's possible disapproval becomes the hole in
the real—the moment, the place where Freud's anxiety is triggered and packaged in a
defensive case history, consciously, then a dream by night. All three registers of
unconscious operation are at work together, first in taking in the sense of
disapproval from Otto as a specific threat to Freud, and then by making the
conscious detour into writing the case history, and the unconscious one in a dream.
Images, phrases, scenes, words, the chemical formula—all of these riches from the
treasure trove of signifiers are mustered in the service of packaging the anxiety as a
pointedly specific threat and spreading it out through the dream and the
associations. That's what happens, on my reading of Lacan. That's how he
understands the pervasive character of the modern, liberal subject's mental life.

The parts of the lecture that concern signifiers are meant to both remind the
audience of the kind of thing that was educated person common knowledge among
academics working in various fields of humanistic inquiry—namely, that bits of
language do not get their meaning by attaching to objects and events in the world at
large; they get their meaning through relations of difference and sameness to other
bits of language. This is an essential component of Saussurean linguistics. Lacan
puts the point this way [682 (806)]: "the treasure trove of signifiers…does not mean
the code, for the one-to-one correspondence between a sign and a thing is not

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preserved there, the signifier being constituted on the basis of a synchronic and
countable collection in which none of the elements is sustained except through its
opposition to each of the others."

Graph 1 [681 (805)]:

Some image, or bit of language, or phrase—the look on Otto's face; "this boy will
come to nothing"—erupts as a significant element that can be recognized as such [I
think that Lacan labels this spot '∆' to mark its instability and flexibility—it is the
potential for significant elements to induce a change of state] and hooks the subject.
The bar through the subject indicates that the significant bit is received as addressed
to the subject, as about the subject, as threatening to the subject. And in that
moment, the general possibility of an entirely authoritative and complete subject (S)
becomes specified (S'). That's the point where the fish is hooked. Consciously, you
might say, "It got to me." The graph is meant to capture a moment when it got to
me. It's the elementary graph because the moment is the starting point for
psychoanalysis, on Lacan's understanding—it's basic; if there was an atom that was
the fundamental building-block of psychoanalytic experience, this will be a diagram
of the atom, on Lacan's understanding.

Graph 2 [684 (808)]: No sooner is it hooked than the fish gets busy.
Start from our barred subject—this is the subject as the point of address. A phrase
that I have found helpful in thinking about its situation is "overwritten and
underdescribed." Otto's face, Otto's tone—it got to me. I was suddenly subject to
the disapproval of Otto. Overwritten. But actually, I have been absolutely
methodical and conscientious in my treatment of Irma. I can set out the detail of
the case to show you as much. Underdescribed. It finds itself in the pool of

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potentially significant elements ('A') some of which now mark it specifically ('s(A)')
when in the mouth of another subject.

How do these elements have any force at all in this scenario? Why aren't they just
words or just images?

They are not just any old words or images—they are words or images that allow the
anxiety triggered by inadequacy to mark the subject. They are significant elements
that take their charge from something functioning as a voice of normative authority,
even if the voice is just a tone, a facial expression, and whatever of bodily
comportment signals Otto's disapproval to Freud. Otto is on the side of 'A'. Otto
has at his command the power to indict Freud without even voicing a specific charge
against him. Otto's apparent disapproval becomes s(A). The expressive resources of
normative authority—A—are at Otto's disposal. Freud's move is to be other than
the inadequacy indicated by '$'—the being found wanting. The move is to be
identified with what is good, beautiful, true, right, and fitting. The move is to
replace $ with a perfect coincidence of the subject and what is all-around excellent—
marked on the graph as the move from $ to I(A).

How will it manage that feat? What a subject to do?

First off, it will be important to limit the exposure. Rather than allowing the whole
of the possible ways in which one might be found inadequate to wreak havoc on
one's state of mind, one carves out a little bit. It's not all of 'A' that bears down on
the subject all at once (although the threat is that there will be such a mountain of
possible imperfection—so indefinitely large a list of charges that even poor Otto's

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apparent unvoiced disapproval will turn out to be catastrophic). It's something more
determinate. In this case, it's whether or not Freud's treatment of Irma was good
and thorough and proper and fitting. Little Freud can at least work to clear himself
of that bit—this is marked on the graph as i(a). Lower-case 'i': an aspect of Freud's
preferred self-image; lower-case 'a': addressed to the perceived sense of inadequacy
springing from the perceived disapproval of his treatment of Irma. Little-'a' is a little
bit of whatever any authority having the power vested in it to make Freud anxious
might focus on in bringing a specific charge against Freud. He writes a case history
to establish that he was already in good standing before anyone so much as hinted
that he might have blundered. He writes a case history because he needs to have
already been protected from any hint of a thought that there was medical
misconduct. He writes a case history to anyone who might request a case-history,
and to himself to reassure himself that his conduct has been above reproach, from
the point of view of the foremost practitioner of an embryonic branch of medicine.
He writes a case history because something in him does not think that he is, in fact,
thoroughly beyond reproach in this matter. That is, he writes a case history the at
once documents and gives appropriate expression to the version of himself that was
not an appropriate subject of reproach, hence not the sort of guy who would be
prompted to spend all evening writing a case history in response to something in the
air of a dear friend's report of Irma's ongoing difficulties. On the graph, 'm' is

méconnaissance—a sense of self, a self-image, a bit of self-knowledge as

misrecognition. The i(a) and m circuit on the graph tames the wild threat of

catastrophic inadequacy and so specifies, limits, and short-circuits the movement by

which the barred subject would establish itself as once and for all beyond reproach. I
called this "ego chatter" last time. The subject identifies itself as specifically beyond

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reproach in some specifically threatening situation in which it is nowhere near

beyond reproach. That's what a self-image as an ego-ideal is for, in Lacan. And the
ego is just the concatenation of those images. Each image, as image, is meant to be
coherent and durable. The whole lot need not be.

A principal trick of the imaginary is to move from the fact that I always and only use
the first-person—use 'I'—to refer to myself (suggesting that I am a constant and
stable being) to an identification between the I-speaker and the concatenation of
self-images that I have accrued over the years in the course of dealing with normative
pressure. It is a trick of the imaginary to pretend that the term 'I' is a name for
whatever answers to all aspects of my sense of myself. It is a trick of the imaginary
to pretend that this accumulation of bits of substantive self-representation is the
very stuff of what says 'I'. I have been saying 'I' for many years now. There is never
any question of evidence in noticing that I use 'I' always and only of myself. I never
have to establish that I am consistent and accurate in my use of 'I'. The ego gloms
onto that steadiness and loads it up with self-images. But the steadiness of the first-
person is precisely not the sort of steadiness that will hold if it is identified with a
load of self-images. Lacan is making this point on pages 685-686 [809-811].

The moments mapped in graphs 1 and 2 can happen anywhere. In graph 3, we move
into the psychoanalytic situation, carrying all the charge from the first two graphs.

Lacan has a story to tell about why the analyst does not speak much in session.
What the traditional set-up does is short-circuit ego-chatter in a very particular way.

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The analyst is there as a figure of authority who does not engage in conversation in
any customary way. The analyst's ego is not performing itself in speech. The analyst
does not criticize. The analyst may not make eye contact. The analyst does not
communicate a set of definite expectations about what is supposed to happen, does
not chat about how things are going with him, with his kids, with his partner, with
the political situation in town. The palpable absence of the ordinary stuff of daily
social life produces a situation in which the analysand can say anything. And into
that great silence, emanating from and held by the presence of the analyst who is not
conversing in any ordinary sense of that term, there is a space for the subject to
speak.

In effect, in Lacanian psychoanalysis, the analyst produces conditions that permit a

subject-to-subject encounter that is not an ego-to-ego encounter. And this is very
strange. The analyst is the audience and is occupying a position of expertise and
authority. The analysand is a minded being. The analysand knows that as a site of
authority, the analyst must be after something. That little seat of authority wants
something. The analysand's task, qua subject, is to figure out what it wants. The
analysand is primed for the inevitable operation of desire—wanting to coincide with
what's wanted in order to be adequate to the demand of the moment. Lacan writes
[690 (815)]:
…it is qua Other that man desires.
This is why the Other's question—that comes back to the subject
from a place in which he expects an oracular reply—which takes some
such form as 'What do you want?', is the question that best leads the
subject to the path of his own desire, assuming that, thanks to the
know-how of a partner known as a psychoanalyst, he takes up that

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question, even without knowing it, in the following form: 'What does
he want from me?'
The stuff of Graph 2 is now in the psychoanalytic speech situation.

The immediate desire, 'd', to coincide with what's wanted (and so not be found
wanting) emerges as a pointed articulation of the potential possibility of brushing up
against inadequacy. In order to be suscsptible to being found wanting, it has to be
the case that there is some challenge that can be raised from a position of normative
authority. The subject has to be accountable to standards. The standards have to be
the kinds of things that could be brought to bear on the subject. A representative of
normative authority, an s(A), has to be position to judge the subject. The desire that
raises the question 'What do you want?' adjusts itself to fantasy, on Lacan's
understanding of fantasy. That desire, represented by a lower-case, italicized d, is
equivalent to a felt demand coming from another who is positioned as an authority,
since the desire just is the desire to be whatever that thing desires, or is demanding
that one be, in order not to be subject to sensed, anxiety-provoking inadequacy.

The symbol for fantasy appears at the far left of the upper-level of Graph 3, ($ ◊ a). The

barred subject—the overwritten and underdescribed subject—stands in some relation to

the specific aspect of possible inadequacy figured in the lower-case, italicized a. Why

call this "fantasy"?

First off, it represents an attempt in the imaginary to heal the breach produced when

something got to the subject. Second, in the psychoanalytic situation, almost any specific

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way in which you, the analysand, feel yourself to be being found inadequate by that little

site of silent normative authority over there somewhere—by your analyst—almost any

way in which you transmute the invitation to say anything into a demand for some very

specific outpourings, will be made up. You are the source of the sensed demand. You

produce the specific demand in order to make sense of the analyst. The analyst, in a

position of authority, can be transmuted into almost any kind of authority under the

circumstances. That symbol for fantasy is nothing if not flexible. Think about the

situation. In a sense, it is awful, but also bearable. The silence. The signs that the

analyst is listening. The sense that the analyst in the room is waiting for something from

you.

If I understand him, this is how Lacan works with the classical Freudian understanding of

analysand-to-analyst transference. Given Lacan's understanding of anxiety and of desire,

the psychoanalytic speech situation is a structure primed for the kind of thing at issue in

classical Freudian accounts of how I come to behave as though my analyst is my mother,

my father, my dissertation supervisor—what have you. Some figure that speaks from a

position of some kind of normative authority—the sort the expression of which can get to

me. I'm here because I want its help. And what it does is insist that I speak. No topic,

unless it's a topic I've introduced. No clue as to whether or not it likes me. No clear

indication that it finds me boring or tiresome either. And the better it is at what it does,

the less it gives me to go on. It may not even outright demand that I say anything. It

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might just sit there while I squirm, or tie myself up this way and that in my head, or what

have you.

Moving to Graph 4:

We don't have the Seminar material on the drives to draw upon here. The complete graph

adds one more layer supplied by the drives. The drives operate by sidestepping desire,

basically, even though the circuit of the drives takes its force from desire. The circuits of

the drives sidestep desire by sidestepping the Big-'O'-Other. At the point he delivered

this lecture, Lacan was working with the possibility of using the drives as a way of

making an opening through which the subject could re-negotiate its relations with

normative authority. In relation to the totality of possible demands ('D'), all treated as

demands issuing from normative authority in general, the barred subject notices that the

Big-'O'-Other and its potential for rendering any little thing significant ('A') is busily

issuing demands. As though it wanted something. As though its completion depended

upon how the subject responded to its demands. All of which suggests that the Big-'O'-

Other is not, in fact, free of lack. Suggesting the possibility that it wants and, hence, can

be found wanting. This is marked on the far left of the new layer with the symbol ' S(A )'.

The bar through the 'A' is the subject's way of saying "You're not all that, after all."

This is implicit in the operation of the drives. In Lacan, the drives work by avoiding specific

registers of inadequacy, figured as specific partial objects that might answer to the specific

demand of the Big-'O'-Other.

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