پایان ناخرسندی؟ ژاک لکان و ظهور جامعۀ لذت

by Todd McGowan, امیرعلی محمدی (Translator), نازنین شهبازی (Translator)

هرچند مارکسیسم بیشترین روشنگری را در زمینهٔ روی‌گردانی از جامعهٔ سنتی و روی آوردن به مدرنیته انجام داده است، درک ماهیت گذار از جامعهٔ بازداری به جامعهٔ لذت نیازمند بینش روان‌کاوی است. نکتهٔ اساسی‌ای که باید دربارهٔ جامعهٔ لذت بازشناخت این است که جستجوی لذت همواره در آن نافرجام بوده است. جامعه نه‌تنها لذتی را که وعده داده فراهم نکرده بلکه آن را بیش از پیش دسترس‌ناپذیر ساخته است. آنچه جامعهٔ لذت آشکار می‌سازد امکان‌ناپذیری هر گونه تجربهٔ مستقیم لذت است: اگر تلاش کنیم لذت را مستقیماً تجربه کنیم، ناگزیر آن را از دست می‌دهیم.
مک‌گوان در فصل نخست این کتاب بین جامعهٔ بازداری و جامعهٔ لذت تمایز می‌گذارد و سپس شاخصه‌های مختلف جامعهٔ لذت و پیامدهای روی‌گردانی از جامعهٔ بازداری و روی‌آوری به جامعهٔ لذت فرمایشی را می‌کاود. او با تکیه بر آرای لکان و ژیژک در حوزهٔ آثار گوناگون ادبی و سینمایی به کاوش شاخصه‌هایی می‌پردازد که در دگرگونی نظم اجتماعی مؤثرند.
تاد مک‌گوان پروفسور دانشگاه ورمونت است. او در مطالعات خود بر فلسفهٔ هگل، روان‌کاوی، و اگزیستانسیالیسم متمرکز بوده و دربارهٔ فصل‌های مشترک این حوزه‌های اندیشه با سینما تأمل کرده است.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Theory, Nonfiction, Sociology, Psychology

408 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2003

About the author

Todd McGowan is Associate Professor of Film at the University of Vermont, US. He is the author of The Fictional Christopher Nolan (2012), Out of Time: Desire in Atemporal Cinema (2011), The Impossible David Lynch (2007), The Real Gaze: Film Theory After Lacan (2007), and other books.

Reviews

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a really smart reading of how many contemporary social problems are rooted in the shift from a culture of prohibition--where the Law was to sacrifice one's enjoyment for the good of society--to a culture of enjoyment--where the Law is to enjoy individually. One of the main problems McGowan identifies with this imperative is that it paradoxically cuts us off from enjoyment because 1) enjoyment is always transgressive, and when it becomes an imperative it becomes a duty, and 2) we become obsessed with the idea of a complete enjoyment that is always incomplete and threatened by the other. We become less socially and civically engaged because the public shrinks into a set of private individuals, each of whom we perceive has access to an enjoyment closed to us, and seeing the other reminds us of our own failure to enjoy (i.e., our failure to meet the expectations of the Law).

[Blaze-Pascal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was very illuminating for me. It's helped me see clearly certain concepts about how our consumer society has shifted towards a society of full enjoyment. I rewatched Dead Poets Society with a new lens, and also the Summer of Sam. I think I'll probably read Paradise Lost by Toni Morrison as well now... in the upcoming months. I stumbled across this because I was interested in consumerism. I think this book does an excellent job of explaining where we are collectively within terms of enjoyment. Will be referencing this book often me thinks.

[Dylan Levine · Rating 5 out of 5]

todd is quickly becoming my favorite contemporary theorist and might be the clearest interpreter of the solvenian synthesis

[Sina bagherzadeh · Rating 3 out of 5]

این کتاب دانشی به شما خواهد داد که آن دانش به تمامی وجوه زندگی‌تان اعم از خودْ، خانواده، جامعه، محل کار، دانشگاه، رسانه ها، اخبار، سیاست، صنعت، هنر، سینما، نسل پدران و پدربزرگانتان، سبک زندگی و همچنین تمامی روابطتان(هر نوع رابطه ای)، معطوف خواهد شد.
اگر بخواهیم تمثیلی کالایی بر این دانش بزنیم می‌توان گفت: عینکی همه کاره بهتان خواهد داد که کاربرد بسیاری در تحلیل وجوهِ ساختارِ زندگی انسانِ مدرن، دارد( مخصوصا زندگی شخصی و اجتماعی ).
سرتان را درد نمی‌آورم، پشیمان نمی‌شوید.
فقط اینکه،
ترجیحاً، اگر مختصر پیش نیازی داشته باشید خواندنش برایتان راحت تر خواهد بود، اگر هم نداشتید مشکلی نیست، می‌توانید از «chat GPT» برای فهم آسان، استفاده کنید. به نظرم به سختی‌اش می‌ارزد.
و
ایرادی که به نظرم می‌رسد به سرتاسر کتاب وارد است این است که نویسنده اکثرا از مثال های داستانی (سینما، ادبیات، رمان، نمایشنانه و … ) به جای مثال های واقعی یا وقایع تاریخی استفاده می‌کند.البته ناگفته نماند که، خواننده حین فرایند فهمِ متن و خواندن مثال ها، عملا مثال های واقعی در جهان واقعی را می‌یابد( همان عینکی که عرض کردم )
و فکر می‌کنم، اینکه نویسنده بیشتر از مثال های داستانی وام می‌گیرد، به این دلیل است که مقصودش توصیف نقش ایماژ در سوژه است، و داستان رابطه ی مستقیمی با امر خیالی و ایماژ دارد.
در ادامه در فصول آخر کتاب، مخصوصا در فصل آخر( رفتار غیر مدنی )، ما بیشتر با مثال های واقعی مواجه می‌شویم، چراکه رفتار غیر مدنی تنها سمپتومی است که به شکل رفتار آشکار، آن هم در جامعه، رخ میدهد، و می‌توان گفت که این رفتار نتیجه ی مواجهه ی سوژه با تضاد بین ایماژ لذت و وعده ی لذت کامل با لذت «دیگری» است.

[AmirHossein · Rating 5 out of 5]

با تشکر از مهسا که اگر از این کتاب سخن نمی‌گفت بعید بود به این زودی‌ها به‌سراغ‌ش بروم.

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

The McCandless version. At the dawn of capitalism, the priority was for it to be an economic system based on production. Capitalist production is based on hierarchy and near fascist command structures. You need to be at the factory gates at 7am or the gates will be locked to you. You will only be paid enough to ensure that you will turn up again tomorrow morning. You are to follow the instructions of your manager and not think for yourself. You are in a master-slave relationship for the length of time that you ‘choose’ to sell your labour power to them. It is not pretty, but it is pretty accurate. We could argue over the existence of political democracy under capitalism, but certainly there is no economic democracy. It is hardly surprising, then, that the main form of social psychology is that of the authoritarian father – where father knows best and you quake at his frown. The moral maxim is thou shalt not. Enjoyment, then, is to be found in following the rules – and this is no real form of enjoyment at all.

This is a book about enjoyment and the shift that occurred last century in capitalism from a society premised on production towards one premised on consumption and the subsequent change in the psychological father figure from the authoritarian towards a more permissive, or even absent father. The example given of this transition is the film Dead Poets Society. In this the Robin Williams character encourages enjoyment over following authority. He encourages his students to find their own path through life and to live a life where they cease the day and live each day as if it could be their last. As such, enjoyment isn’t an ornament that decorates our lives, but life’s main imperative. In fact, it is increasingly seen as our main objective in life. So much so that the author says that we can’t fully enjoy ourselves because the point of enjoyment is to be lost in the moment and that becomes hard when you are constantly wondering if you are fully enjoying yourself – or if you would have enjoyed yourself more if you were doing something else. Enjoyment is seen as a kind of breaking the rules, and so is essentially non-productive. In a consumer society this strangely non-productive time becomes our chief desire. And this non-productive time is time spent purchasing things for our personal enjoyment.

And that is the other point of enjoyment – it is anti-community. We enjoy ourselves. It is not that others can’t also be enjoying themselves at the same time, but their enjoyment isn’t as important to us as our enjoyment. Or rather, their enjoyment might actually take away from our enjoyment – since we might consider that they are enjoying themselves more than we are. And this competitive enjoyment becomes a problem for us. Not least because enjoyment feels like it needs to be total, and someone having more fun than we are is a threat to our own enjoyment. This is the other aspect of modern capitalism, it turns us all into individuals seeking to maximise our own enjoyment.

The author ends this by discussing that most American of modern phenomena – mass school shootings, that also became a popular sport at about the same time as enjoyment became mandatory. And who are killed in such shootings? The popular kids and the foreigners – everyone living a life of more enjoyment than the shooters are. And this is also why they tend to be from nice, white, middle class families too – the ones who had been promised everything and end up being the bullied, the victimised and the worthless. If I can’t have it all, I will make sure I take from you what ought to have been mine.

The author says that both left and right think that the way out of this mess is by returning to some form of the disciplining father – but that is now impossible. The only way out is to find a way to recognise the false hope that enjoyment offers us. But the whole of the system depends on the maintenance of that false hope. You are always just one more purchase away from happiness – the metaphor of our age is that of Tantalus – forever grasping for what is always just out of reach. Except it is worse than Tantalus, because we are allowed to grasp the fruit and drink the water – it is just that it immediately turns to ash in our mouths. The way out is to find a way out of the trap that is our desire for enjoyment based on ashes.

He also says that because we are obsessed with enjoyment, we are politically apathetic. The point being that political engagement requires us to think more of our community that ourselves - and enjoyment gets us to focus almost entirely upon our own satisfactions. An interesting thing to consider when a friend tells you they don't watch the news or vote.

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a really smart reading of how many contemporary social problems are rooted in the shift from a culture of prohibition--where the Law was to sacrifice one's enjoyment for the good of society--to a culture of enjoyment--where the Law is to enjoy individually. One of the main problems McGowan identifies with this imperative is that it paradoxically cuts us off from enjoyment because 1) enjoyment is always transgressive, and when it becomes an imperative it becomes a duty, and 2) we become obsessed with the idea of a complete enjoyment that is always incomplete and threatened by the other. We become less socially and civically engaged because the public shrinks into a set of private individuals, each of whom we perceive has access to an enjoyment closed to us, and seeing the other reminds us of our own failure to enjoy (i.e., our failure to meet the expectations of the Law).

[Carrie Hawks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Repeats some of the points over and again, but I really enjoyed the book and was swayed by the premise. Our culture has shifted to a necessity of enjoyment. Also very easy to view the theory through films.

[Sandra Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has a great chapter on apathy.

[Ryan]

Really accessible introduction to some key Lacanian claims. Interesting thesis, too.