I Lacan Quit Any Time I Want

What exactly is Lacan’s idea of the Other? A short and surprisingly faithful gloss of the concept might be that the Other is absolutely everything. The Other affects subjectivity and the properties of language. For example, words can only be defined through other words, each in turn only definable through still more words, ad infinitum. This is what Lacan calls “the metonymy of speech,” yet the ultimate consequence is a radical division and subjectivity of virtually any concept that is verbalized or written (The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis 188). Even more importantly, the Other is the vehicle, locus, and meaning of the unconscious. As Lacan writes, the unconscious is “that which is inside the subject, but which can be realized only outside.” (147). Of course, the Other is also essential to a Lacanian understanding of drives, since “transference [is] no more than the concept of repetition itself.” (129). Furthermore, “man’s desire is the desire of the Other” and there is a “handing back of truth into the hands of the Other.” (115, 36). Today’s episode of Dr. Phil—like most episodes—seemed to contain a vast amount of Otherness, though latent. The show introduced America to two “pill popping” twins, Yvette and Yvonne. Early on, it was clear how each subject “realized” herself in the opposite twin, trying to get out and pull free (188). This is not so simple in a Lacanian universe, where every subject is divided and significant only through outside forces. This is quite evident in the fact that, according to Dr. Phil, the twins “enable each other” which we might more usefully read as enabling each Other. It is not simply their identity as sisters that requires an appreciation of the Other to be fully understood, but rather the entire circular logic of addiction. As Dr. Phil explained to either Yvonne or Yvette—both were so high on Xanax, it’s hard to tell the difference—such behavior is entirely “outside the limits of acceptability.” However, one questions to what extent that alone is a problem. Would it be okay to be a drug addict if everyone saw such behavior as acceptable? Anyone who says “yes” should read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, paying close attention to the passages on “soma,” the wonder drug of the future that makes everyone feel great with no apparent negative side effects. A Lacanian, though, would still see the potential dangers in such a drug, and a society that accepts it, since it represents an act of uninhibited surrender to the Other, comprehensively ingesting part of which must remain outside. Instead, the morality and safety of the act itself has little to do with societal values or conventions. It is precisely through the twins’ intentional internalization of such outward unacceptability that their identity, moral culpability, consciousness, and drives are formed—regardless of any moral or empirical absolutes. While Dr. Phil seems to criticize the drug use because of the “side effects” on the children, physical and mental states, and so on, Lacan point to the drug abuse as the effect of the twins’ untenable, ill conceived Others. Thus, while Dr. Phil suggests: “you need to create order, standards,” Lacan would much more likely find that it is the very social, economic, political, and psychic order which, through the standards of the Other, has forced the two to seek out such an unhealthy, precarious existence. If it is clear that the Other reveals a deep and powerful aspect of the sisters’s relationships toward each other, larger societal mores, and their drugs of choice, it should also be unmistakable that the Other is governing many more relationships in this situation. For one, I find it difficult to find drug use blameworthy through the rational of moral absolutism. Foucault, for example, called an LSD trip in Death Valley National Park the greatest experience of his life. For each religion-based system of morality that condemns such chemicals one could no doubt find an equal number of traditions that condone, or encourage the behavior. In relativist terms, however, it is precisely through the mechanism of the other that such behavior is portrayed as damaging. For example, Dr. Phil often reminded one of the Y sisters that “your husband drove high: two people are dead!” Still more frequently Dr. Phil, or one of the more conventionally well-behaved family members would says something like “drug addicts cannot raise children properly” or “this is not the right way to raise children.” It is impossible to point directly at the twins’ drug use and say, “look, look what it’s doing to you!” The other effectively converts such criticism into the positive building blocks of drives, identities, and interpersonal or communicative relationships. Similarly, one cannot point to a perfect way to raise children, but it is much more easy—in fact, one could say it is even Dr. Phil’s ultimate goal—to show the world exactly how not to handle kids, so as to inspire Others positively. However, most of this analysis has focused on how the other “can be realized only outside” of the subject, though it is equally true that it is “inside the subject.” (147) Therefore, one must question exactly how drug and child abuse are present in Dr. Phil’s personal psyche, and, of course, one’s own. The Other also blurs the line between who and what is at stake to the point that, when Dr. Phil brought back the usual refrain that “I’m doing this for the kids...obviously” it was, in all actuality, far from obvious that he wasn’t doing it for himself, the audience, or more abstractly all non-children anywhere since, of course, one would be hard pressed to find a 7 year old on Xanax. It is in this way that, from a psychoanalytic point of view, common sense, all of Dr. Phil’s suggestions, and even trips to qualified detox centers are all useless unless the analyst can help the patients in “the reopening of the shutter” to reveal that which has been there in the unconsciousness of the actor from the very beginning, without being fully known (131, 130).

I'm Serious, This is 100% Serious

Recently I was contacted by an associate producer from the Dr. Phil show. Are they seeing if I'd be a good guest? It certainly appears like that's a possibility. So, in addition to getting some very desperately needed help from Dr. Phil and his team, I may one day soon be able to give my bastion of loyal readers a quasi-insider's view of the show and it's process. All I can say is, pray for me, and, for now, enjoy this correspondance, edited, of course, for privacy reasons:

"B[deleted for privacy purposes], Emily"

To:

Subject: Dr. Phil: 601-16

Date: Monday, February 04, 2008 21:12:21

Dear Seth,

Thank you for speaking with me. Could you please give me 10 SPECIFIC examples of how being an “intellectual elitist” has caused problems in your life.

Also, as it is our standard procedure, could you please email me some recent photos of yourself?

Thanks!

Emily B[deleted for privacy purposes]

Associate Producer

The Dr. Phil Show

(323) -[deleted for privacy purposes]