_Sarah Palin's pregnant, unmarried 17-year-old daughter and probable future son-in-law stood in a nationally televised, politically packaged airport receiving line to meet and greet the Republican candidate for president.

_The extremely cute and bubbly Piper Palin, 7, made her debut on her mother's behalf, appearing in a video on John McCain's daughter's blog. "Vote for my mommy and John McCain," she said, giggling as Meghan McCain grinned.

_Bristol Palin and her 18-year-old boyfriend, Levi Johnston, sat and held hands as they watched the Alaska governor deliver an acceptance speech that, in its opening minutes, focused heavily on her family and children. Later, the family — including Johnston — ascended the stage, basked in an extended ovation and waved.

Huh? The Republican message about the Palin offspring comes across as contradictory: Hey, media, leave those kids alone — so we can use them as we see fit.

If you doubt this scenario, consider this: On Wednesday morning, a teenage boy from Alaska stood in a receiving line on an airport tarmac, being glad-handed by the potential next president of the United States — because he got his girlfriend pregnant. TV cameras were lined up in advance. The mind boggles.

"Either the children are out of bounds, and you don't put them in the photo ops, or you don't complain when somebody wants to talk about them. You can't have it both ways," said John Matviko, a professor at West Liberty State College in West Virginia and editor of "The American President in Popular Culture."

"Right now, it looks like they're being used by the campaign more than the media are using them," he said.

In psychology this is the pathological passive-aggressive ploy known as the "double bind", already long made famous in unilateral racial identity politics, radically misanthropic feminist politics, and other slavish movements that will first carve out by unilateral definition a sanctuary zone wherein partisans declare themselves to be untouchable and then from that vantage point launch what they hope will be (and often succeed in having conceded to them) a hermetically protected attack upon their now-pre-paralysed opponents on the same terms from which their protective sanctuary is constituted: "racism", "sexism", "political correctness", now this Orwellian Palino-Republican "familyism": unwed teenage pregnancy now as the celebratory manifestation of the Culture of Life over and against the Culture of Death—except in all other cases.

Can I share a personal conviction? I think vision is the cure for sin. One reason many of us get entangled in sin is because we don't have enough God-ordained vision to keep us busy. The more vision you have, the less you will sin. And the less vision you have, the more you will sin. It is a vision that keeps us playing offense spiritually.

Too often we try to stop sinning by not sinning. That is what psychologists call a double bind. It's sort of like saying, "Be spontaneous." You can't be spontaneous now that I've told you to be! The way to stop sinning is not by focusing on not sinning. The way to stop sinning is by getting a God-sized vision that consumes all your time and energy.

Are you focusing your time and energy wisely?

    [gallery]

      Maybe I should start by delving into the Magazine culture of America and taking a closer look at some of the messages delivered (both subliminal and obvious) and their meanings, motives and goals of magazine companies, and the effects these aspects (along with others) have on our shape-shifting society...

      The year 1731 marked the introduction of magazines into society where The Gentlemen’s Magazine, has stolen the title of “The first general interest magazine”. Founded in London by Edward Cave in January of 1731, the original complete title was The Gentleman's Magazine: or, Trader's Monthly Intelligencer. Wikipedia sources state that Cave's innovative and original idea was to construct a monthly digest of news and commentary on any topic that the educated public would be interested in. It was equipped and packed with original content from a source of regular contributors, along with a variety of extensive quotes and extracts from books and other periodicals. Edward Cave edited The Gentleman's Magazine under the pen name ‘Sylvanus Urban’, and was the first to ever use the term ‘magazine’; which meant ‘storehouse’, for a periodical. As time progressed, journalists, editors, organizations and industries have run with Caves idea and in many ways changed what a magazine is and the purpose it most commonly serves today.

      Today’s magazines are flooded and filled with inconsistencies and/or contradictions that exist in dominant cultural messages associated to addressing gender, gender identity and expectations, men’s or women’s social and sexual roles, and beauty or body norms. Above all, a great amount of pressure is placed upon men and women by society to live up to an almost impossible double-bind.

      Eat All You Want and Still Stay Lean and Fit, 10 Ways to Meet You Perfect Mate, Fashion Does and Don’t; these are just some of the ideal headlines used in magazines today with the purpose of luring in readers and bestowing upon readers the definition of what it means to be that perfect person and how they should go about reaching this goal. This then also implies that the reader may in fact not meet the certain standard of today’s society and their self-esteem is stimulated as they flip from one page to the next. There are even certain instances where words do not even have to be used; as striking images hit viewers with strong messages both obvious and subliminal; from women (and recently also men) being viewed as sex objects to the portrayals of the ideal ‘standard’ figure of one’s body. This then links to the plausible claim that “the body is a surface upon which culture is written.”

      Magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Maxim show unrealistically slim and trim women with long hair, and radiant skin as the epitome of women which leaves female viewers who don’t meet any of those standards feeling unworthy and men seeking to attain one of these women as a prominent goal in life. Readers are enticed to become comfortable with themselves by submitting to the changing of their character and appearance whilst being urged to transform the self, by emulating others, or getting what they don’t already have. With everyone being pressured into achieving this standard, what is to be said about those who are unable to do so? Are they cast out of the norm or not looked at as highly or worthy as those who do suit the standard, and are they not worthy of attaining happiness in life?

      Countless mixed messages are presented consistently leaving individuals at a fleeting fork in the road. Magazines provide information on thrift and saving whilst contradicting them selves later on by insisting that one indulge. Men and women are equally targeted where as women are told to be empowered, yet are still disempowered by magazine ads, and men are pushed to earn the title of being a ‘real man’. Magazines encourage conformity to external regulations and create an embattled relationship with the self rather than providing adequate support for one’s self-esteem based on the fact that everyone is in there own way different, unique and beautiful whether it be inside or out.

      Messages regarding ones individual, economical, and idealistic freedom or self-expression are weakened or contradicted by other messages about conformity to a mass ideal of beauty standards, economic essentials, and traditional non-political or power wielding roles for women where gender is portrayed in the ‘natural beauty’ trend (especially in instances where so much is ‘unnatural’ or ‘fake’). Polished females are depicted to represent the ideal female, yet on the other hand women are coached into making themselves prettier or more presentable by not wearing as much make up or polishing them selves up, when in fact the very women that they are looking at in the magazines are themselves polished. These messages most certainly carve out for women the difficult work of “looking like you didn’t work at it.”  The Magazine’s definition of natural beauty most certainly strays from the sole meaning of the word ‘natural’ in that something that is natural is not artificial or imitated.

      Susan Bordo’s, The Male Body uncovers the many forms of male depiction within magazines, media and advertisements. According to Bordo, until recently have men ever been portrayed as sexual objects like women have over the years. Men were never before allowed to be viewed or looked at, but instead be the viewer(s). Magazines now display men in little clothing posing with either masculine or feminine under tones in order to attract both men and women. Advertisers formulated a genius plan that has gone undetected by depicting men with more feminine characteristics such as being slimmer and more boyish looking.

“At the same time however, my gaze is invited by something “feminine” about the young men. His underwear may be ripped, but ever so slightly, subtly; unlike the original ripped-wear poster boy Kowalski, he’s hardly a thug. He doesn’t stare at the viewer challengingly, belligerently, as do so many models in other ads for male underwear, facing off like a street tough passing a member of the rival gang on the street”  (Bordo).

      This allows for both homosexuals and heterosexuals to continue buying products from that particular store or manufacturer with out them losing customers.

      Magazines have been transformed so much to the extent that they are now no longer centered on the original idea formulated by Edward Cave. No longer are magazines solely monthly digests of news and commentary on any topic that the educated public would be interested in; but are instead advertising powerhouses with an extremely manipulating force that plays on an individual’s self-esteem and rearranges wants and needs. People are rarely presented with real solutions and ideas, but rather with fantasy driven ideals which in reality almost never play out to be true. Playboy Magazine’s regular subscribers have a total annual salary that is roughly below 40,000 dollars, yet they have numerous advertisements of high end electronics, cars, and cloths that these readers would never be able to afford. Do readers, advertisers, and magazine publishers really see nothing wrong with this contradiction?

      Overall, one could argue that the main problem that causes these paradoxes is the fact that people have a difficult time contemplating and relating to the solid differences between fantasy and reality. Instead of providing a sense of reality to the public that can secure meaning and values that are relevant to one’s natural life, people are encouraged to fantasize and seek unattainable goals. All people have been created to be individual standards and unique beings rather than a population that must fit into a certain standard that weeds out those who do not conform or fit in. Fantasy is what people ‘want’, but reality is what they ‘need’.

"It took Pleasure to make me and Pain to give birth to me..." - Kev

Problem is, as an adult, we grow with our own world view, thinking whatever thought processes or assumptions that we have obtain, that has been refined in experience, is immediately right and correct, if not it won't have lasted so long.

Then some obnoxious fellow comes into our lives and disrupts, challenges, and tests our beliefs. Hopefully with an awareness that our perspectives may be narrow will allow us to view more perspectives and get a better view of life in general, allowing us to cope with the situation better.

I view 'weakness' as something dreadfully irritating, it is something I want to avoid, it is something that disgusts me. And while I should be writing my essay on this, yet I will just post it here for thought.

'Weakness' disgusts me. What I view as weakness seems to be, "you have a problem, and instead of taking steps to solve them, you just want to complain about them." This attitude disgusts me.

Now that I know this, I have decided to investigate what sort of people get trap in the formula of thinking like this. This might help me engage people I normally won't want to engage.  I am just wondering what is making it so much more frustrating for me. And I am determined to find out what is making it frustrating for me, lest I become disgusted with myself.

De vermelde site wil een fenomeen, de invloed van een label op de situationale, de gesitueerde zelf- en anderperceptie, bespreekbaar maken, daarrond sensibiliseren en via akties in de publieke ruimte "de nieuwsgierigheid wekken van de gewone man in de straat. Op die manier willen we met het project, zonder voorbij te gaan aan de noodzaak van labeling, een bijdrage leveren tot het inperken van de negatieve effecten van labeling."

De site roept op om, via dialoog, ervaringen uit te wisselen "over hoe we zelf etiketteren en hoe dat ons gedrag beïnvloedt; welke stempels we opgeplakt krijgen, door wie, met welke gevolgen en hoe we daarmee omgaan; welk label we zelf kiezen en waarom; wat anders zou kunnen en moeten …"

de site zou men kunnen bekijken als een vb. van wat Bateson in 1972 (en waar ook journalistieke werkwijzen niet aan schijnen te ontkomen, althans het is interessant om er zo naar te kijken) heeft omschreven als "double bind communication": paradoxale communicatie, in sommige gevallen pathologisch, in het geval van de journalistiek, de betreffende website?, dan sociale pathologie creërend.

Immers, de site wil "met het project, zonder voorbij te gaan aan de noodzaak van labeling, een bijdrage leveren tot het inperken van de negatieve effecten van labeling."

maw:
- label je niet, dan ben je geen goede burger (het moet, het is een noodzaak)
- label je wel, dan ben je ook geen goede burger (want het heeft negatieve effekten)

Het gaat niet over het labelen als akt, niet over het woord label, het zijn slechts containerbegrippen. Het gaat over normatieve omgevingen/discoursen van tekort, onvolkomenheid die een (groeps)pathologiserende beleving van het label beinvloeden en die door hun pervasiviteit mee helpen zorgen dat een negatieve beleving in stand/instant wordt gehouden waarbij ahw. alleen maar een natuurlijk en historisch fenomeen wordt voorgesteld zoals wordt gesuggereerd in de woordkeuze van de vijftakt.be-makers, 'de noodzaak van labeling'. Waarvoor dient labeling? Wat zijn haar bedoelingen en in welke omstandigheden hebben ze nut? Een soort mer (milieu-effektenrapportage), een impaktstudie van de toepassing van het begrip zou relevant kunnen zijn.

Een mogelijke uitweg uit die sociale pathologie-construktie is communicatie over de communicatie: Hoe werken double bind strategieën, hoe kunnen ze herkend worden? We kunnen ze misschien niet vermijden maar we kunnen ze wel blootleggen, verduidelijken zodat eenieder die ze als individu, als groep oplegt en/of ervaart, zich kan verweren door ze te benoemen.

Gezien hun impakt op de situationale van mensen, zouden media als kritische duidingsmogelijkheid van de politieke besluitvorming, het economische denken, het hedendaagse techno-medische discours, het geinstitutionaliseerde welzijnsstakeholdersschap en hun wederzijdse beinvloedingen, in hun rol als plek van informatiegaring, perceptiebeinvloeding, -bepaling en dus labeling, interessante bijdragen kunnen leveren aan de gezamelijke hantering van deze double bind strategieën. Dat zou, naast het uitnodigen van de gewone m/v/mv/vm in de straat, een weldadig verstrekkende invloed kunnnen genereren, net wat de bedoeling van de site is zoals ik dat begrepen heb.

inspiraties:

1. Emotions in the wild: The situated perspective on emotion
http://paul.representinggenes.org/webpdfs/EmotionsintheWild.pdf
2. Inside or Outside of Politics? Metaphor and Paradox in Journalism
http://www.nordicom.gu.se/common/publ_pdf/29_hellsten.pdf
3. Ik in Veelvoud. Een zoektocht naar de relatie tussen mens en psychiatrische diagnose. Jasmina Sermijn, 2008, 112 p.
4. Edward Lorenz, father of chaos theory and butterfly effect, dies at 90. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/obit-lorenz-0416.html
"By showing that certain deterministic systems have formal predictability limits, Ed put the last nail in the coffin of the Cartesian universe and fomented what some have called the third scientific revolution of the 20th century, following on the heels of relativity and quantum physics," said Kerry Emanuel professor of atmospheric science at MIT.
5. Catastrophe, Chaos, Complexity, Theory. http://www.yorku.ca/jspot/1/dayletts.htm
"one of the most important contributions that complexity theory can make to the social sciences and humanities is to revalue contradictory, both-and modes of analysis and action"

To be fair to Freud, again, his was not a singular or idiosyncratic betrayal. We are all invariably confronted with an immense and seemingly infinite network of meanings and words, characters and dynamics, that we hastily reduce to what we, at any given point in time, find manageable and/or useful. We devise systems of reference along whose axes we can begin to pin a sense and a service. We select; we bracket; we prioritise; we abstract; we interpret. Faced with the other alternative, the one that is all too keen to deploy the multiplicity of meanings and values as a justification for upholding the futility of any and all intervention, Freud’s often seems the only responsible route for us to take.

        It is no surprise that, with time, Freud’s Oedipal identifications found refuge in yet another mythological entanglement. While speaking Oedipus, the psychoanalyst began to live the logic of a Sisyphus, barely glimpsing the open landscape of relief only to have to wearily give it up and descend the slopes of blindness he had just scaled, and begin all over again. Caught in the logic of such hopeless repetition, no wonder his analysis had become interminable. Meanwhile, and yet again, Freud’s reenactment of this second myth illustrates, and in the strictest of psychoanalytic ways, the extent to which our conscious experiences of fate and punishment are often grounded in covert but no less potent choice and collusion.

[A schema of (Real) being and the (Symbolic) Other from lacan.com]

In a previous post I suggested that in contrast to Alexandre Leupin's ontological presentation of Jacques Lacan's three orders, Bruce Fink in The Lacanian Subject offers a durational model, i.e. a model that portrays the relationship between the orders as historical configurations, i.e. as results of an experience through time. This statement is perhaps truest in Fink's delineation of the Real, which he explains in terms of its entrance into the Symbolic. In doing so, Fink narrates the great psychoanalytic drama, i.e. Freud's story of the Oedipal family generalized by Lacan into the existential conflict between language and body, an offshoot of which is the conflict that Leupin stresses between Law and desire.

After stressing the primacy of structure, language, the Symbolic, Fink posits the Real as the "time before the word," that "presymbolic or prelinguistic moment" that (in the advent of language, upon our entrance to the Symbolic order--which, Fink stresses, is essential not only to speaking and communicating but (echoing Saussure) to being able to think at all!) "the letter kills" (24). Fink connects this Lacanian Real with Freud's concept of polymorphous perversity, that stage in a child's life when s/he as of yet makes no distinction between different body parts and experiences pretty much everything as (sexually! since no distinction yet) pleasurable (which, Deleuze and Guattari assert, ought to be preserved in letting the first connective synthesis, well, synthesize!). At this stage, as Fink explains, "the infant's body [i]s but one unbroken erogenous zone, there being no privileged zones, no areas in which pleasure is circumscribed at the outset" (24). Analogously, "Lacan's [R]eal is without zones, subdivisions, localized highs and lows, or gaps and plenitudes: the [R]eal is a sort of unrent, undifferentiated fabric, woven in such a way as to be full everywhere, there being no space between the threads that are its ‘stuff.' It is a sort of smooth, seamless surface or space which applies as much to a child's body as to the whole universe" (24).

Upon entrance to the Symbolic order, however, (discussing it in Freud's terms) "an infant's body [. . .] comes under [the] sway [of language, e.g. . . .,] is [through words] subjected to toilet training and instructed in the ways of the world. In the course of socialization, the body is progressively written or overwritten with signifiers: pleasure is localized in certain zones, while other zones are neutralized by the word and coaxed into compliance with social, behavioral norms" (24). More generally speaking, (discussing it in Lacan's terms) the Real is divided "into separate zones, distinct features, and contrasting structures," in which, it can be said that the Symbolic order "cuts into the smooth facade of the [R]eal, creating divisions, gaps, and distinguishable entities and laying the [R]eal to rest, that is, drawing, or sucking it into the symbols used to describe it, and thereby annihilating it" (24). It is in this way that "the [S]ymbolic bars the [R]eal, overwriting and erasing it" (26).

"Since it precedes language," which is what "brings things into existence (makes them part of human reality), [i.e.] things which had no existence prior to being ciphered, symbolized, or put into words," the Real thus cannot be said to exist (25). Rather, it "ex-sists," i.e. "it exists outside of or apart from our reality" (25). The Real is thus different from reality, which, "canceling out the [R]eal, the [S]ymbolic creates [. . .], reality as that which is named by language and can thus be thought and talked about" (25). Reality then is not so much the Real as the Imaginary, which, thanks to our immersion (by the Symbolic) in symbols (mostly, but not only, in words), is all that we are left with: mediations, representation, imitations, images . . .

What we have here, then, is a trio of realities (of different natures): the prelinguistic, polymorphous Real, which the Symbolic annihilates to create what we commonly refer to (what we conceive of--which (the perception of individual entities) language, as asserted by Saussure, enables us to do) as "reality," which is but merely Imaginary.

Fink moderates this interpretation. Retreating somewhat from the Real's annihilation, he says, "The [R]eal is perhaps best understood as that which has not yet been symbolized, remains to be symbolized, or even resists symbolization, [. . .] which may perfectly well exist ‘alongside' and in spite of a speaker's considerable linguistic capabilities" (25). He does this, however, not as much as Leupin, who, in his lectures (LSU 2006), asserted time and again that the Real is that which cannot be symbolized, cannot be expressed, cannot be articulated, hence cannot be submitted to Law, but also (since Law is what constitutes it, i.e. it is there--ex-sists--(at all!) because of Law) cannot be fulfilled--i.e. as desire itself. Moreover, Leupin asserts that, although constituted by, the Real is different from--is not--the Symbolic, language, the Law, in that way unrestrainedly defending it. (Although Deleuze and Guattari would point out that, keeping to the psychoanalytic framework, Leupin continues to delineate desire within not, i.e. negatively, as lack.)

In contrast, in Fink, the resistance of the Real remains but a passing reality--which, in fact, must be overcome. Thus, Fink stresses the Real's entrance to the Symbolic--the (Lawful) socialization of desire--which--this socialization, and the subject's reconciliation with it, in Fink's own words, "put[ting] into words [and its Law] th[e Real] which has remained unsymbolized [outside the Law]"--is, Fink claims, the psychoanalyst's true task (25)! He thus describes the Real as "progressively symbolized in the course of a child's life," a process in which the psychoanalyst must help (26). In contrast to Leupin, then, who thinks of the Real as desire itself, Fink considers the Real (or at least the pertinent parts of it, with which it is the psychoanalyst's job to be preoccupied) more as a trauma, something (a residuum--which, in Deleuze and Guattari, is all that there is of the subject!) that has not been transformed by language (and its Law) (granted, not all of it, but the part) "that has become a stumbling block to the patient" (26).

Credit must be given to Fink in pointing out that "the goal of analysis is not to exhaustively symbolize every last drop of the [R]eal, for that would make of analysis a truly infinite process, but rather focus on those scraps of the [R]eal which can be considered to have been traumatic" (26). Still, the psychoanalyst that he is, Fink wants to get the "analysand to dream, daydream, and talk, however incoherently, about a traumatic ‘event,' [to] make him or her connect it up with words, bring it into relation with ever more signifiers" (26). In other words, the Real (or at least most of it) must still--Fink the psychoanalyst insists on this--enter the Symbolic (in which the psychoanalyst can help! In fact, this is his task.). In other words, desire (labeled as trauma because it does not fit in with the injunctions of society) must still be related to the (despotic) signifier (i.e. the phallus) (that lays down the Law).

This is because, according to Fink--rather than the inherent potential (against the (Symbolized) social order) for resistance in desire--the Real designates "trauma, [which] implies fixation or blockage, [. . .] involv[ing] something which is not yet symbolized, language being that which allows for substitution and displacement--the very antithesis of fixation" (26). Thus, this unsymbolized, this Real, must, by all means, in all necessity, without exception--through psychoanalysis as the talking cure--enter the realm of language, be subject to its laws (the Law)--which will then, presumably, solve the problem. This--solving the "problem"--again, amounts to--rather than asserting exception--entering the (established) (Symbolic) order. The problem, in other words, is taken to be remaining outside. Thus, the solution is to (sociably) enter the order--in which psychoanalysis can (readily! so long as you have money to pay for those time-variable sessions!) help. Which is what psychoanalysis designates as being "cured."

Now, "the cause--the traumatic cause--[is not necessarily] a word or an expression [. . .]; nevertheless, the analyst may jolt the analysand into taking a leap [beyond the cause] towards the word: perhaps but a garbled or mumbled sound at first, speech with no apparent meaning [hence the potency of those slips], but a first step towards symbolization notwithstanding" (28). This will then pave the way to progressive symbolization--which will then, well, solve everything! (Fink develops the same picture and asserts the same mechanism in delineating the formation of the Lacanian subject, who--rather than resisting with his/her desire--comes to accept the Other's desire as his own.) (Perhaps Fink here was simply being faithful to Lacan--who was simply being faithful to psychoanalysis, the science of the established order that it is, i.e. State science!) In other words, the solution to the "problem" indicated by the Real is entrance to--capture by--the Symbolic. That is, capture by the leash. And (moreover, more importantly! thanks to psychoanalysis) resignation to it.

Fink tries to differentiate Lacanian psychoanalysis from this description (which, come to think of it, is not that different from the aims of American ego psychology, which Lacan repeatedly denounced) by distinguishing the operation that Lacan espouses from what Fink calls understanding. “To understand,” Fink explains, “means to locate or embed one configuration of signifiers within another. In most cases it is as nonconscious a process as one could desire, requiring no action on the part of a subject: things fall into place within the web of multifarious connections among thoughts already ‘assimilated’” (71). Meaning, according to this schema of understanding, is nothing but a fitting into a preexisting chain already assimilated (into the Symbolic order), which leads to the assumption of the subject as ego.

Fink asserts that Lacan deliberately refuses to understand “insofar as understanding involves nothing more than situating one configuration of signifiers within another, [. . .] because in the process of understanding, everything is brought back to the level of the status quo, to the level of what is already known” (71). It is in this way that “meaning (meaning as what you imagine you have understood) is [but] imaginary” (71). Lacan’s approach, Fink points out, is (in contrast to understanding) metaphorization. Rather than leading to “the sense of being someone, [. . . the ability to] imagine yourself as someone (an ego or self), who has accomplished a difficult task” (e.g. as a thinker), metaphorization, what Fink calls “true understanding,” “brings about a new configuration of thoughts, establishing a new combination or permutation, a new order in the signifying chain, a shakedown of the old order” (71). This is because metaphor, as Lacan defines it, does not only involve substitution of meanings but the rise of new signification, the emergence of new meaning (hence its description as creative) (69). In this metaphoric process, “connections between signifiers are definitively changed, [. . . a] kind of modification [that] cannot occur without implicating the subject” (71). (Fink relates this creation of new meaning (as opposed to mere substitution) with the subject as breach (as opposed to the subject as mere precipitate of meaning) (72).)

It fails to occur to Lacan (or to Fink), however, that metaphor itself (by its very definition) relies on similarity, on familiarity (more precisely, on being able to define/express something strange through something more familiar (to the senses), making it understandable that way). That is to say, metaphor—the device that Lacan prefers to use in his psychoanalysis—(by its very definition, by virtue of how it works) still makes things understandable based on the status quo, the established order. Lacan (or Fink) can claim that this is precisely why he makes use of extravagant or mixed metaphors that sometimes do not make sense (or take time to make sense), to undermine this very similarity/familiarity. Still, so long as it is (still!) a metaphor that is used, the operation undertaken would still rely on similarity/familiarity, i.e. on the contours defined by the established (Symbolic) order—precisely because the tool used (i.e. metaphor) involves, operates with, and relies on those things.

To put it plainly: by way of similarity/familiarity (as they are determined under the established (Symbolic) order) is simply how metaphor works. That is how it can make its comparisons. That is how it achieves its effects. Thus, psychoanalysis, even in the hand of Lacan, is defiant of the established order—is resistant—only up to a certain extent. Fink betrays as much when he describes metaphorization as “a process which goes beyond the automatic functioning of the [S]ymbolic order and involves an incursion of the [S]ymbolic into the [R]eal” (71). More precisely, this involves “the signifier bring[ing] forth something new in the [R]eal or drain[ing] off more of the [R]eal into the [S]ymbolic” (71). Drain off (more and more of) the Real, that is, to insert it (more and more) into the (established) Symbolic order. Symbolize the unsymbolizable/unconscious/different. Socialize it. Assimilate it. In other words: Tame it. Capture it in the leash.

Despite its progressive symbolization, psychoanalysis (with Fink here as its spokesman) admits that the Real "can never all be drained away, neutralized, or killed. There is thus always a remainder which persists alongside the [S]ymbolic" (27). Fink comes to call this remainder the "second-order" [R]eal, which essentially is but the same as the residuum mentioned above (hence is but the same as the Real itself), although perhaps this formulation by Fink betrays that through time, thanks to its symbolization (its repression!), the Real gets smaller and smaller (hence second-order, third-order . . .). Nonetheless, the important point comes out (return or the repressed?) that "the [S]ymbolic order, [. . .] produces something, in the course of its autonomous operation [in the stage that Deleuze and Guattari call the second disjunctive synthesis?], that goes beyond the [S]ymbolic order itself," the Real, the unconscious site of desires, that "the [signifying] chain then works around [of]," "the other of the chain" (27).

This other of the chain is akin to a logical exception or a paradox, a (following Gödel's theorem of incompleteness) kink in the Symbolic order, the "(w)hole in the Other" (as language), itself an Other (from the set designated by all signifiers, i.e. an Other of the Other as language / the Symbolic) (29-31). This is analogous to Leupin's portrayal of the Real as something over and beyond language (although Leupin, as already mentioned, does not bother himself with delineating the process through time and presents a simple ontological picture), which the Symbolic cannot, as it were, root out (although it is this very attempt to root it out--to repress it--that creates it--the Real--in the first place). Upholding the principle of the signifier being "a real object, signifying nothing" (although for Deleuze and Guattari, that is not real enough!), Fink describes that "the excluded symbols or letters, [. . . the other of the chain,] take on a certain materiality, [. . .] and it is less what the letters say [. . .] than their matter- or object-like nature which [then] has an effect" (of fixation, of blockage?) on the subject (27-8).

In portraying the Real, the residuum, the cause, as an exception to structure, "interrupt[ing] the smooth functioning of" "the automatic functioning of the signifying chain," Fink asserts that Lacanian psychoanalysis departs from structuralism (31). Obviously, however, it does not depart from psychoanalysis--which, does not it force the Real to be inserted back into structure?

After all, what is produced in this whole process, this whole mechanism by which the Real is (forcefully, but--with the help of psychoanalysis--with consent) inserted/socialized/subjected into the Symbolic (linguistic, Lawful) order, is none other than what Lacan (as explained by Fink) considers reality, which, as mentioned above, (in conjunction with Saussure's theory of the sign) does not exist apart from language, apart from it being designated and specified by words. In other words, that which has entered the (linguistic) order--and only that--is what comes to be considered "real" (in the sense of being a part of the reality in which we function, which we can recognize, what really matters . . .), which, alas! is not Real but merely Imaginary! And the Real, since it cannot enter the Symbolic, is considered to be, well, not really “real.” Thus, for the Real to be real, it has no choice but to be (represented, reduced, socialized . . .) inserted back into structure, into Language, subject to its Law.

The Real, in other words, is relegated to that which but ex-sists--when, as Deleuze and Guattari assert, it is the Real that is desiring-production! As Deleuze and Guattari protest in Anti-Oedipus, the desiring-production of "endless connections, nonexclusive disjunctions, nonspecific conjunctions, partial objects and flows, [in other words] the desiring-machines [that] pound away and throb in the depths of the unconscious," i.e. the real production that (really!) takes place in the unconscious, "is crushed, subjected to the requirements of representation" (54). "The reproduction of desire gives way to a simple representation. [. . .] The productive unconscious makes way for an unconscious that knows only how to express itself--express itself in myth, in tragedy, in dream" (54). "Production is reduced to mere fantasy production, production of expression. The unconscious ceases to be what it is--a factory, a workshop--to become a theater, a scene and its staging" (55).

What is this Real unconscious that we are left with? As Deleuze and Guattari cry out, "What is an unconscious that no longer does anything but ‘believe,' rather than produce? What are the operations, the artifices that inject the unconscious with ‘beliefs' that are not even irrational, but on the contrary only too reasonable and consistent with the established order?" (61). The unconscious (thanks to psychoanalysis)--the Real that it is--no longer produces, but merely fantasizes, imagines. Fantasies are all it can create. It is no longer real but merely imaginary production. The Real itself--in its Symbolization being transformed into reality--is relegated to the Imaginary.

As such, the social is (can) no longer be questioned, desire loses its revolutionary potential, because abstract individual fantasy "apprehends [the existing social field] in the form of imaginary qualities that, [rather than allowing the subject to see that it is directly invested by his/her desire,] confer on it a kind of transcendence or immortality under the shelter of which [s/he,] the individual, the ego, plays out its pseudo [rather than real] destiny" (62).

Alarmed by this, Deleuze and Guattari assert that "the unconscious itself is no more structural than personal, it does not symbolize any more than it imagines or represents; it engineers, it is machinic. Neither imaginary nor symbolic, it is the Real in itself, the ‘impossible [R]eal' and its production" (53). That is what ought to be upheld--not the Real's Symbolization into a reality but Imaginary.

Now, how does psychoanalysis respond to this--this assertion of/by the Real? That is to say, not as Imaginary, but as machinic, as Real production? In Deleuze and Guattari's mocking words, the only choice that psychoanalysis gives us is "between the whole of the differentiations that [the Symbolic order] imposes and an undifferentiated [Real] that it presupposes" (78). If you choose to uphold the Real, well, psychoanalysis says, you’re just undifferentiated: indistinguishable, inexpressible, unthinkable, non-understandable, not real (i.e. not part of “reality”)! So, really, if you want to be something at all, you have no choice but to enter the Symbolic, be spoken by language, be subjected to its Law. That is your choice: to conform to the established order. In other words, either you (as desiring-machines) enter the Symbolic, or you get lost in the void of the undifferentiated (Real). "Oedipus informs us: if you don't follow the lines of differentiation daddy-mommy-me, and the exclusive alternatives that delineate them, you will fall into the black night of the undifferentiated" (78).

This when, as Deleuze and Guattari point out, it is Oedipus that creates both choices in the first place, "both the differentiations that it orders and the undifferentiated with which it threatens us" (78-9)! The Symbolic and the Real are orders (of (psychic) reality) as delineated by Oedipus--with which psychoanalysis gives us no choice but to enter one or that other--which are, well, both Oedipal alternatives! As Deleuze and Guattari remonstrate:

With the same movement the Oedipus complex inserts desire into triangulation, and prohibits desire from satisfying itself with the terms of the triangulation. It forces desire to take as its object the differentiated parental persons, and, brandishing the threats of the undifferentiated, prohibits the correlative ego from satisfying its desires with these persons, in the name of the same requirements of differentiation. But it is this undifferentiated that Oedipus creates as the reverse of the differentiations that it creates. Oedipus says to us: either you will internalize the differential functions that rule over the exclusive disjunctions, and thereby ‘resolve' Oedipus, or you will fall into the neurotic night of imaginary identifications. Either you will follow the lines of the triangle--lines that structure and differentiate the three terms--or you will always bring one term into play as if it were one too many in relation to the other two, and you will reproduce in every sense the dual relations of identification in the undifferentiated. But there is Oedipus on either side. And everybody knows what psychoanalysis means by resolving Oedipus: internalizing it so as to better rediscover it on the outside, in social authority, where it will be made to proliferate and be passed on to the children. [. . .] Oedipus is like the labyrinth, you only get out by re-entering it--or by making someone else enter it. Oedipus as either problem or solution is the two ends of a ligature that cuts off all desiring-production. [. . .] The unconscious has been crushed, triangulated, and confronted with a choice that is not its own. [. . .] Parents have been found for the (orphan) unconscious! (79)

This is the logical stunt employed by psychoanalysis that Deleuze and Guattari call the double bind, in which "an alternative, an exclusive disjunction is defined in terms of a principle which, however, constitutes its two terms or underlying wholes, and where the principle itself enters into the alternative" (80). In other words, we are presented with a choice--in which there really is no choice. Whether we choose one or the other, we end up having made the same choice: Oedipus. In Deleuze and Guattari's words, "Everything takes place as if Oedipus of itself had two poles: one pole characterized by imaginary figures that lend themselves to a process of identification, and a second pole characterized by symbolic functions that lend themselves to a process of differentiation. But in any case we are oedipalized: if we don't have Oedipus as crisis, we have it as structure. Then the crisis is passed on to others, and the whole movement starts all over again" (82). This is but one of the many ways in which psychoanalysis--the State science that it is--preserves (subtly, with a veil (e.g. to "cure" you), and all too willingly (so long as you can afford to pay those time-variable sessions . . .)) the established order.

"I don’t think that the Republican Party is going to choose a pro-choice, pro-gay civil union candidate to lead our party," Romney added ... etc.

Note the sleight-of-hand disqualification, a species of double-bind in which the respondent changes the content of the question or statement:

"I don’t think that the Republican Party is going to choose a pro-choice, pro-gay civil union candidate to lead our party."

The statement is Functionally equivalent to: I don't think a good little boy or girl should choose such a option.

First injunction: you will make a choice.

Second injunction: to be a good little boy or girl, you will choose what is my choice; hence, you effectively have no choice.

Our intuition: Romney has confused conservatism with some sort of creepy-nightmare-paternalism, a blunt-instrument American Caesarism, only the Caesar is the caricature of an uptight-screwball, seething-with-impotent-rage middle manager, affordable-tract-housing suburban father circa 1963.

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

P.S. Here is the problem for Romney: how many Evangelicals know who e.g. Weyrich is?---or Bopp, despite his cool name? But everyone knows who Pat Robertson is---whether you agree with him or not, you know who he is, and you know that he is a staunch believer etc.

... Romney said Giuliani has maintained his lead in polls because so many candidates are vying for support from social conservatives. That dynamic will change as the field narrows.

"There are a lot of us fighting on that side. There are six, seven or eight of us going after that audience and Mayor Giuliani is pretty much alone on the other side," Romney said. "It's not a big surprise that he continues to hold that portion of the party."

Romney spoke during a taping of Iowa Public Television's "Iowa Press" program and later during a meeting with reporters.

At some point, Romney said the party's conservative base will coalesce around a candidate, making it tough for Giuliani.

"Those of us who represent that base will find that we can get that support and ultimately face up one to one with Mayor Giuliani," Romney said. "At that point he'll have a more challenging time because I do not believe the Republican Party is going to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House by acting like Hillary Clinton.

"We have to be distinct. We have to act like Republicans."

The Romney campaign---in the person of Romney himself---is talking to itself again. Regard: the argument is about Romney relative to other candidates, and concludes on an outcome in Romney's favour. Also note the contradictions.

"We have to be distinct. We have to act like Republicans."

This is the solution: be distinct, like me. Isnt' this a contradiction?---or, worse, a double bind like "be spontaneous!" For Romney to be distinct like him is the solution to both the Clinton and the Giuliani problem, two distinct problems that Romney wants you to link. Yet Romney's explanation for his low poll numbers and non-performance is this:

"There are a lot of us fighting on that side. There are six, seven or eight of us going after that audience and Mayor Giuliani is pretty much alone on the other side," Romney said. "It's not a big surprise that he continues to hold that portion of the party."

Romney's alibi for the non-performance of his campaign: Romney's distinct lack of distinction. Romney argues: There are six or seven or eight of him, candidates just like him. According to Romney, only Giuliani is distinct, and only Giuliani enjoys the support of a coherent base ("that portion of the party").

How can one man, attempting to emit one message, elaborating upon one theme, contradict himself so many times, and with a straight face?

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

The double bind becomes apparent when I interact with individuals in group 2 and group 3 as explained in My Struggle living with an Invisible Disability --Part 1. Although I attempt to educate people with in those groups as to the nature of my disability, for some reason they can not or will not accept that I have legitimate deficits and limitations. Nevertheless, in many instances when I interact with people within groups 2 and 3 they still want me to function as a person without deficits and limitations. What makes matters more difficult for me is that when I interact with individuals in groups 2 and 3 I am held responsible for not being able to live up to their expectations. Often times I am blamed, shamed or put in the position of being a scapegoat for matters that are out of my control and thus the double bind.

Based on my awareness and acceptance I attempted to negotiate a win-win outcome. In the process of attempting to negotiate an amicable course of action the other person became incensed with me. My attempts to negotiate a win-win outcome were discarded as unacceptable. After I stated how a win-win outcome could be obtained, our conversation became heated. In the process of attempting to prove my point I got caught up in justifying, answering and defending my position. Angry words were exchanged before the conversation ended. Several hours later I contacted that individual and apologized for my part of the verbal exchange.

Several nights later I attempted to process what I experienced during my negotiation process while attending a support group meeting. After the meeting ended, while talking with a friend he pointed out that I was focusing on the other person's behavior. At first I found myself experiencing shame over wanting to be heard. Reality became apparent as I thought about what my friend had told me. In my attempt to be heard I lost my focus. I forgot to remember that the person with whom I attempted to negotiate continues to believe that I am making excuses and using my traumatic brain injury as a tool of convenience. In essence, I am being given the message that I should not be limited by the injury to my brain.

Through the course of attempting to negotiate the win-win outcome I re-learned several valuable lessons. I am powerless over people’s perceptions. I do not have the power to change anyone's perspectives. What other people say or think about me does not make it so. I am not responsible for fixing another person so that we can have a better relationship. I can not help open eyes that chose to remain closed. I need to accept people for who they are, rather than who I want them to be.

Because I have the power to make healthy choices, I am able to avoid being placed in a double bind. I no longer need to stay stuck in shame and guilt for not being able to measure up to the expectations of people within groups 2 and 3. I am an empowered individual because I choose to practice live and let live. I am responsible to people, but not for them or their choices. In the event that people, like the individual that I discussed above, choose to deny my reality then I need to practice healthy self care and limit the amount of time that I subject myself to their criticism. In my choice I do not judge people in groups 2 and 3 as bad or wrong, I merely recognize that I am unable to create a win-win outcome through our interactions.

All material presented on Second Chance to Live is copyright and cannot be copied, reproduced, or distributed in any way without the express, written consent of Craig J. Phillips, MRC, BA