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Interrogating the master: Lacan and radical politics
One of the central questions for the social application of psychoanalysis is whether it can promote significant social and political change, and to what extent it can provide a coherent theoretical foundation for a radical critique of existing political practices, discourses and institutions. The aim of this paper is to explore the contribution of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to radical politics - in particular, anarchism. This may seem an improbable exercise at the outset. After all, Jacques Lacan was a psychoanalyst, not a political theorist - still less a political activist. Moreover, he was deeply suspicious of the radical politics of the Left, pointing to the ambiguous relationship between revolutionary transgression and authority. However, the purpose here is not to suggest that Lacan was an anarchist, or that his thinking veered in that direction. Rather, it is to examine the implications and relevance of Lacanian ideas - in particular, his theory of the four discourses - to radical political theory and practice. Despite the seeming difficulties of this application, there are a number of points of convergence that can be developed here. Certain Lacanian concepts, when applied to political and social discourse, allow one to explore a number of dimensions crucial to radical politics today. These would include the structural and discursive relationship between authority and resistance; the pitfalls of utopian fantasy; and the contingency and indeterminacy of the political field.
Why anarchism?
The collapse of Communist systems nearly two decades ago led to a profound disillusionment in the West, not only with the Communist project - which had been in a state of crisis for some time - but also with radical left-wing politics generally. The subsequent hegemony of neo-liberal, and then Third Way, ideologies seemed to constitute the dominant political referents for a global capitalist system that has come to be seen, as Slavoj Zizek says, as the "only game in town" (Butler et al, 2000, p 321). However, in recent years there have been a number of attempts to breathe new life into radical political theory. Utilizing and developing insights from poststructuralism, deconstruction and, in particular, Lacanian psychoanalysis, thinkers like Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe and Zizek have, in different ways, attempted to reinvigorate the emancipative...