Departure from silence (On the appearing and disappearing subject)
Coming back from the summer break, I look forward to the unfolding of dialogues and exchanges here. I hope for traces of thinking captured in a post or a comment. I hope you will join me.
Recently, I have been reflecting on the concept/process of alienation and its (surprisingly) contradictory meanings – the (common) sense of alienation as estrangement from other people, the (legal) sense of the (power of) alienation as an essential ingredient of ownership, and then, in Lacanian sense, as an advent of the subject. Perhaps, instead of giving into the negative connotation – as in deliberate action of becoming unfriendly – there is a way to understand alienation as a hopeful possibility of innovation and creativity. Perhaps alienation is a sign that something was given up, relinquished rather than abjected. A sign, perhaps, that a new ownership can take place – for me that would be an ownership of my own thoughts (or “thinking of my own making”) … Though, if we accept that we do need to speak to one another in order to relate to one another, yet our words betray us once spoken, silence may become an easy (uneasy?) solution… but… isn’t it that it is precisely then that we find ourselves “being spoken for”? Abjected? Alienated? Unheard?
And… on the Lacanian subject (and the subject of Lacan), I read: “Alienation and separation are linked to the two-fold lack and they install the subject in a never ending pulsating process of appearing and disappearing. Alienation takes the subject away from its being, in the direction of the Other. Separation is the opposite process, inasmuch as it redirects the subject toward its being, thus opening a possibility of escape from the all-determining alienation, and even a possibility of choice, albeit a precarious one” (Paul Verhaeghe)
So… what do you say? Can this become a place to speak instead of being spoken for?
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