An ordeal of the real: shame and the superego
This essay argues that the renovation of a discourse of shame in late capitalist society requires revisiting the conventional Freudian literature on shame from a Lacanian point of view. The argument holds that shame is a subjective manifestation of a complex dialectics between the ego-ideal and the...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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University of the Free State
2021-07-01
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| Series: | Acta Academica |
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| Online Access: | http://196.255.246.28/index.php/aa/article/view/5468 |
| Summary: | This essay argues that the renovation of a discourse of shame in late capitalist society requires revisiting the conventional Freudian literature on shame from a Lacanian point of view. The argument holds that shame is a subjective manifestation of a complex dialectics between the ego-ideal and the superego. The essay extends the Lacanian notion that shame is felt in relation to an “Other prior to the Other”. Under the dialectical pressure of the ego-ideal, the superego, it is argued, plays a paradoxical but ineliminable role in the production of shame. In the concluding parts of the essay, I tease out the radical socio-political consequences of a renovated Lacanian discourse of shame. Correlated to the death drive, shame offers an escape from the capitalist symbolic order’s predeterminations and pre-assigned identifications. As such, shame is designated not only as the telos of psychoanalysis, but also as the original and originary ethical relation.
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| ISSN: | 0587-2405 2415-0479 |