Let Them Rot: Antigone’s Parallax

by Alenka Zupančič

A provocative, highly accessible journey to the heart of Sophocles' Antigone elucidating why it keeps resurfacing as a central text of Western thought and Western culture.



There is probably no classical text that has inspired more interpretation, critical attention, and creative response than Sophocles' Antigone. The general perspective from which the book is written could be summarized with this simple question: What is it about the figure of Antigone that keeps haunting us? Why do all these readings and rewritings keep emerging? To what kind of always contemporary contradiction does the need, the urge to reread and reimagine Antigone--in all kinds of contexts and languages--correspond?

As key anchor points of this general interrogation, three particular "obsessions" have driven the author's thinking and writing about Antigone. First is the issue of violence. The violence in Antigone is the opposite of "graphic" as we have come to know it in movies and in the media; rather, it is sharp and piercing, it goes straight to the bone. It is the violence of language, the violence of principles, the violence of desire, the violence of subjectivity. Then there is the issue of funerary rites and their role in appeasing the specific "undeadness" that seems to be the other side of human life, its irreducible undercurrent that death alone cannot end and put to rest. This issue prompted the author to look at the relationship between language, sexuality, death, and "second death." The third issue, which constitutes the focal point of the book, is Antigone's statement that if it were her children or husband lying unburied out there, she would let them rot and not take it upon herself to defy the decree of the state. The author asks, how does this exclusivist, singularizing claim (she would do it only for Polyneices), which she uses to describe the "unwritten law" she follows, tally with Antigone's universal appeal and compelling power? Attempting to answer this leads to the question of what this particular (Oedipal) family's misfortune, of which Antigone chooses to be the guardian, shares with the general condition of humanity. Which in turn forces us to confront the seemingly self-evident question: "What is incest?"

Let Them Rot is Alenka Zupančič's absorbing and succinct guided tour of the philosophical and psychoanalytic issues arising from the Theban trilogy. Her original and surprising intervention into the broad and prominent field of study related to Sophocles' Antigone illuminates the classical text's ongoing relevance and invites a wide readership to become captivated by its themes.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Nonfiction, Politics, Theory, Literary Criticism

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 17, 2023

About the author

Alenka Zupančič is a Slovenian philosopher whose work focuses on psychoanalysis and continental philosophy.

Born in Ljubljana, Zupančič graduated at the University of Ljubljana in 1990. She is currently a full-time researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and a visiting professor at the European Graduate School. Zupančič belongs to the Ljubljana School of Psychoanalysis, which is known for its predominantly Lacanian foundations. Her philosophy was strongly influenced by Slovenian Lacanian scholars, especially Mladen Dolar and Slavoj Žižek.

Zupančič has written on several topics including ethics, literature, comedy, love and other topics. She is most renowned as a Nietzsche scholar, but Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Henri Bergson and Alain Badiou are also referenced in her work.

Reviews

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fabulous read. If I enjoyed reading Antigone, I enjoy reading about Antigone more.

Every philosopher and psychoanalyst (Lacan) I've read throughout the years has had something to say about Antigone and they all approach the same kernel, the Act. Hegel treats Antigone's Act (and womanhood in general) with contempt, though as a Necessity nonetheless that laid the groundwork for the acknowledgement and ascension of human Spirit; it goes like this, the Ethical Order or Sittlichkleit of Ancient Greece was thrown into disarray after Antigone's Act reveals a beyond within the order itself, the infinite beyond of the human subject - Hegel elaborates all of this in his speculative way and it can be read differently I suppose.

Lacan, being a Freudian, takes this much further as the Name-of-her-Father is the name of psychoanalysis' first big breakthrough. Lacan praises Antigone's radical fidelity to the singularity of her desire and her willingness to destroy herself and all that is supposedly "good" in order to commit her radical act of freedom/treason.

Zupančič, being one of the new Slovenian dialectical materialists, takes Lacan's claims much further. It's always hard reading a much smarter fellow Lacanian because it reveals the aspects I missed or did not pay close enough attention to when I was reading, though to be fair to myself I haven't finished all his works yet. Lacan highlights something in his Seminar on Ethics that I remember recognizing, but only briefly, which Zupančič makes very clear. The Oedipal complex, could or should very well be called the Jacosta complex as she unconsciously (like Oedipus) fucked her son the murderer of her husband, his father. Jacosta's unconscious desire highlights the truer source of a subject's terrifying desire - the desire of the Other. A child's traversal of the Oedipal complex is not just about the grappling with their prohibited desire, but also grappling with the prohibited desire of the (M)Other. Much of our lack/desire develops in the form of a question to the Other, "Che Vuoi?" or "What do you want?" - hence, why Lacan gave a long discourse on Hamlet where he highlights Hamlet's grappling with his mother's incestual desire for her dead husband's murderer and brother. Our neuroses, perversions, hysterics, etcetera develop out of this question and the realizing of the lack in the Other themselves. The Other's desire is just as opaque to themselves as it is to the subject and this revelation has a vast array of "indifferent" consequences.

Besides this, Zupančič also made clear that Creon's refusal to grant Polynices burial rites was a dangerously tyrannical act - it inscribes the founding crime (usually disavowed or flatly prohibited) into the order itself. The founding crime of the State must not be inscribed into its constitution, lest the order itself be constituted as a criminal enterprise. The Soviet Union had no chance of survival after Kruschev's "secret speech", the crime of the Stalinist terrors had to be disavowed to allow for any healthy order to flourish, but instead its functioning (which had now inscribed the founding crime into the order itself) relied on a more subtle, yet still blatant, form of terror and control - this could explain why the fact of George Washington's dentures being made from his slaves' teeth is faithfully left out of history books. Any founding of a State is founded on a crime, until it is retroactively paved over, hidden, or fetishistically disavowed - this is why the struggle of Black Americans will remain a struggle under the very Constitution founded on their subjugation or the indigenous Americans will never find justice under the yolk of the United States. A State's founding crime must be swept under the proverbial rug, or said State will devolve into an authoritarian nightmare that only has a short period of time before its dissolution. This is why when a rebellion wins, it is a glorious revolution, and when it fails it is a terrible and treasonous crime.

Overall, I love how Zupančič handles the material and especially her comparing Antigone to figures like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. I am further convinced that my self diagnosis as a hysteric is definitely correct. To be hysterical is considered a pejorative in today's language, but we know better. The hysteric is not willing to sacrifice their radical subjectivity to conform to the bourgeois fetters of "individuality" or "infinite uniqueness" - as this just means choosing between Fila, Madewell, or Zara when choosing a sweater. To be radically subjective [hysterical] is to ask the questions that are prohibited or impossible to be thought by most. When we really reflect on "individuality" in the bourgeois sense we "mediately" recognize that that just means conforming to one of the lines of discourse and modes of operating that have been laid out before us (democrat or republican, fast fashion or "slow fashion", Starbucks or local coffee shop, university discourse or Master's discourse, or - from J Rafferty’s suggestion - live, laugh, love or eat, pray, love --- infinite choice to distract us from the choices we aren't supposed to make), radical subjectivity [hysteria] is a burning desire to breakout of those forms and to forge a new road out of the old. In regard of all the bourgeois subjects you know, they are easily categorizable (their subjectivity subverted by the signifier). I'm well aware I fall into a category myself, though due to the universal He's-Just-Not-That-Into-You Complex of the contemporary American subject, I posit myself as an exception rather than a rule. Though I have attempted to subsume my subjectivity under the exceptional signifier par excellence, communism - but, I have yet to have had the chance or have yet to reveal my fidelity to such a Notion.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Subjectivity is something other than this neoliberal valorization of individualities; it is 'hysterical' in its essence. It aims not at uniqueness or at its personal rights, but at what is rotten in the state of things, in the order of things. Freud saw this very clearly. Hysteria is never just a personal problem: it is a problem of a certain structuring of power and social links. And although it is true that the hysteric is usually part of the configuration she denounces, it is also true that hers is the subjective position that makes this problem perceptible and impossible to ignore. In this precise sense, the problem of the hysteric is almost always our problem too, whether we care to hear about it or not - not simply because she makes it our problem but because the problem actually exists independently of her, 'objectively'. Hysteria is a subjectivation of that problem, not simply a 'subjective problem'." (p82-83)

[Dennis Lundkvist · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The well-known Lacanian claim that 'desire of the subject is always desire of the Other' does not, of course, mean that the subject simply desires the same thing as the other (copying the other's desire, so to speak). It means above all that the subject's desire originates in the enigma and interrogation of the desire of the Other; that is to say, it originates in that which eludes the Other as well, in the irreducible contingency of desire. There is something in the Other that the Other is not the master or mistress of. >>Why does the Other want what they want?<< This is the question and the emphasis that bind the subject's desire to the desire of the Other. 'Fidelity to desire' is in this sense fidelity to its question, fidelity to the fact that desire is a question: >>the question<<, even." (p.77).

[leren_lezen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would never let Zupančič rot ❤️

Incredibly beautiful and accessible work on Antigone's - who has a hot mind over chilly things - drama of desire, although I'm happy that I've read the Oedipus trilogy first.

Beautiful to see the development from the Ethics of the Real (2006), this book and Extimacy (2025), where a similar gist of Zupančič' argument returns: Creon's evasion of the Real is what is evil and obscene. Antigone is 'good' because she can only act in accordance with the Real of her universally singular desire, as Zupančič states a Kantian apathological desire. It describes the difference between perseverance (feminine, Antigone, an enigma even for oneself) and fixation (masculine, Creon, directed at external validation thus egocentric). This argument comes back in her interpretation of Creon as avoiding all subjective responsibility in name of the state, whereas Antigone takes so much of responsibility for the fuck ups of others that this costs her her life. Seeing life as the Real byproduct of the Symbolic is also beautiful, just like everything she writes about desire.

We could also interpret Lacan's second death not in line with degrading an already dead body but in line with a social death: why is it more unethical to deny the Realness of others and deny their Symbolic existence (2nd death) than 'just' killing their bodies and ending their lives (1st death)? It is because they (the Creon's of the world) are too weak to carry the responsibility of committing an actual murder, but also too weak to tolerate others in their own right and not ask others to accommodate their small and egocentric window of tolerance. The only option that remains for the Creon's is a murder of the other's Realness so their Symbolic universe does not have to crumble (which is what Creon attempts in the name of the state).

Still looking for a convincing rebuttal of the 'terrrorism' argument, as the ethical stance of Antigone shares much with the stance of a suicide bomber, and I'm not sure how to circumvent that problem (probably impossible).

Can read this quote a twenty times more and hang it quote above my bed probably:

"Egocentrism is not a land of subjective singularities, it is rather like a factory, an assembly line of individualities, all similar, if not all the same, adhering to a set of predetermined choices that exclude many others as utterly unthinkable, impossible. The abundance of different choices obfuscates their inexorable uniformity when it comes to the exclusion of any difference that would indeed make a difference" (p. 81).

[Simon Gros · Rating 5 out of 5]

My copy of the book is titled "I'd Let Them Rot" and not "Let Them Rot". This might seem like a minor difference, but its the one between opinion and injunction.

The variation of the titled without the added "I'd" seems like a Kantian imperative of "one must", while adding "I would" in front of the title (as my copy holds) seems more like a statement of personal preference, an oddity, a quirk.

There is a huge difference between the Kreonic order of "letting Polineikos rot" and Antigone's personal ethics that seems more existentionalist and surreal.

The title is set not to diminish the demoniac aspect of Antigone's persona, yet still, giving a book the title of "Let them rot" as if it were an exclamation, might seem quite strange given that it was written and published in the midst of the Covid_19 pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine.

That being said, an after-thought of the reading is also to raise the basic question of the simple facticity of the claims made within the book itself: Ranging from topics including different censored translations of Antigone by Sophocles, a caricature of the works written by Marquis de Sade, to Jacques Lacan’s notion of the lamella, etc. the entire book ends up reading more as a 100 times repeated and rehashed old joke from one of the public appearances of Slavoj Žižek easily found on YouTube with hundreds of thousands of views, rather than an original piece of philosophical writing by Zupančič herself.

For further reading I'm copying a newspaper article from the website of British Guardian newspaper from a few months ago, about the time the book was announced (and the pandemic still ongoing):

Title: The rise of ‘bai lan’: why China’s frustrated youth are ready to ‘let it rot’

Vincent Ni, guardian.com, China affairs correspondent Thu 26 May 2022 02.33 BST

Phrase bai lan gains popularity as severe competition and social expectations leave many young people despondent

"Early this month China’s president Xi Jinping encouraged the country’s youth to establish “great ideals” and incorporate their personal goals into the “bigger picture” of the Chinese nation and people. “‘China’s hope lies in youth,” he said in a major speech.

But on China’s internet, some young people say their “ideals” simply cannot be achieved and many of them have given up on trying. Frustrated by the mounting uncertainties and lack of economic opportunities, they are resorting to a new buzzword – bai lan (摆烂, or let it rot in English) – to capture their attitude towards life.

The phrase, bai lan, which has its origin in NBA games, means a voluntary retreat from pursuing certain goals because one realises they are simply too difficult to achieve. In American basketball, it often refers to a player’s deliberate loss of a game in order to get a better draft pick.

On Weibo, the bai lan-related topics have generated hundreds of millions of reads and discussions since March. Netizens also created different variations of the bai lan attitude. “Properties in Shanghai too expensive? Fine, I’ll just rent all my life, as I can’t afford it if I only earn a monthly salary anyway,” one grumbled.

In recent days, this phrase – and more previously ‘tang ping’ (lying flat, 躺平), which means rejecting gruelling competition for a low desire life – gained popularity as severe competition and high social expectations prompted many young Chinese to give up on hard work.

But bai lan has a more worrying layer in the way it is being used by young people in China: to actively embrace a deteriorating situation, rather than trying to turn it around. It is close to other Chinese phrases, for example ‘to smash a cracked pot’ (破罐破摔) and ‘dead pigs are not afraid of boiling water’ (死猪不怕开水烫).

State media have taken note of this trend. “Why modern young Chinese like to ‘bai lan’?” one recent article in official media outlet asked. “In fact, this is as a result of negative auto suggestion, repeatedly telling oneself I cannot make it… And this kind of mentality often leads people to adopt the ‘bai lan’ attitude.”

But the reality is not quite as state media suggested, says Sal Hang, a 29-year-old creative industry professional in Beijing. He says that for his generation of young Chinese, this attitude of letting things rot is likely to be caused by a lack of social mobility and increased uncertainty in today’s China.

“Unlike my parents’ generation, young Chinese today have much bigger expectations, but there are many more uncertainties for us, too. For example, we cannot make any long-term plans for our lives any more, because we do not know what is going to happen to us even five years down the road.”

After working as a flight engineer in south-western China, Hang moved to Beijing three years ago to work in music, his passion. But the workplace reality changed his initial ambition.

“My boss often sets unrealistic targets for me. But however hard I try to meet his KPIs, I always fail. So in the end, I lose my motivation and just do my bare minimum.”

Prof Mary Gallagher, director of the Centre for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan, says ‘bai lan’ is not necessarily a sentiment unique to China. “It is a bit like the ‘slacker’ generation in America in the 1990s. And like ‘tang ping’ last year, it is also a rejection against the ultra-competitiveness of today’s Chinese society.”

But in today’s China, the sense of hopelessness among the young is further exacerbated by shrinking economic opportunities, she says. In the past few months, while hundreds of millions of Chinese people were confined to their homes due to Covid lockdowns, the world’s second-largest economy also found itself struggling to boost growth.

More than 18% of young Chinese people aged between 16 and 24 were jobless in April – the highest since the official record began. “Hard to find a job after graduation this year? Fine, I’ll just bai lan – stay at home and watch TV all day,” wrote one netizen who struggled to find work, despite China’s top leader urged young people to fight for the future.

Kecheng Fang, a media professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, says young Chinese use ‘bai lan’ or ‘tang ping’ to show they are not cooperating with the official narrative. “All these popular phrases reflect a shared social emotion of the day. When people use them, they are not just expressing themselves, but looking for a connection with those who have the same feeling,” he says.

“Despite the grand official narrative from the leaders, in real life, we are all in the same situation, after all.”

Additional reporting by Chi Hui Lin and Xiaoqian Zhu"

[Bouke Van Balen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oprecht weinig van begrepen, maar wel van genoten van deze Lacaniaanse analyse van de mythe van Antigone. Psychoanalyse is fascinerend als theorie voor taal- en cultuurfilosofie. Antigone, die haar broer een ‘proper burial’ wil geven (in tegenstelling tot Creon, die hem veroordeeld tot rotten in het openbaar) wordt gepresenteerd als iemand die een lek in de maatschappij dat normaal taboe is laat zien. Rottende lichamen zijn overal, maar worden normaal van het zicht onttrokken. Wat gebeurt er als we een lichaam niet begraven, en we het rotten voor onze ogen zien?

Het boek bevat interessante reflecties op geweld, begrafenissen (als het symbolisch laten sterven van iemand terwijl ze doorleven in de realm van de undead) taboes, incest (als de verboden samenkomst van natuur en cultuur), jezelf in eerste of derde persoon aanspreken (als het laten zien van de split tussen subject en Ik), en op onze tijd (als een tijd van individualistische hysterie - ik zou hen laten rotten).

Waar ik nog dacht tijdens het lezen, is filosofie als eros: het verlangen tot kennis is een verlangen naar compleetheid, maar zal altijd onvervulbaar zijn. Helemaal opgaan in het uitdokteren van onbegrijpelijke ideeën kunnen we dan zien als death-drive, een manier om het onbegrijpelijke te ontkennen door het begrijpbaar te wanen, en zo in een ervaring van joussaince terechtkomen.

[James Magrini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let Them Rot (2023) is a new book published in Fordham University’s series (Idiom) focused primarily on literary theory and philosophy from a Continental perspective. I suggest that prospective readers not steeped in or at least familiar with later Derridean ideas and Lacanian psychoanalysis steer clear from this offering. Despite be written in clear language, sections can be exceedingly involved and dense, and so therefore require a dedicated and patient reader.

The title is both shocking and alluring (violence-and-desire) and is a somewhat unusual play on the “subjectivity” of Antigone and her relationship to her brother (“let the others rot”), which also includes the understanding of “parallax view”: (1) like all time-honored classics of literature (or philosophy, for that matter), there exist manifold ways from which to view and hence assess and interpret a character’s (Antigone’s) plight and actions; and, as related specifically to Let Them Rot, (2) an approach to reading the Antigone that traces the experiences that are unique and hence “subjective” to Antigone by means of a multi-perspective and layered approach to interstation.

Zupančič’s reading is focused on “violence and unwritten laws; death and funeral rites; incest and desire – or, from another, parallax perspective: terror, undeadness, and sublimation” (p. 7). The interpretation is set within the following historical (ontological) realities or moments: “The major shift in the background of the play Antigone is the shift from the rule of Oedipus and his descendants, with the terrible curse and the unconscious crime shaping their destiny, to the normal rule of Creon; we could also say that what is as stake here…is the transition from prehistory (myth) to history, from the rule of unconscious crime pertaining to the law to the ‘rule of law’ and its excluded, unconscious core” (p. 6).

Parallax view, I note here, as related to phenomenology, suggests that interpretations are shifting and only partially revelatory (e.g., the famous notion of the “dark side of the moon”). It also, from the perspective of human vision, is relatable to stereoscopic vision and “depth perception,” and Zupančič’s reading represents an attempt to plumb the depths of the many interrelated meanings that are hidden - often remaining “unseen” and “unsaid” – which must be wrested from concealment.

To begin, readers will encounter Lacan’s distinction and interaction between the Real and symbolic, which Zupančič links analogically with the metaphysical distinction between the Ontological (Being) and the ontic (beings). There are also, albeit implicit, ideas that are undeniably drawing life from Derrida’s writing about “traces” and “unforeseen presences and futures,” e.g., the democracy, forgiveness, and messiah “yet to come.” Although Heidegger is mentioned (recall that he offered us no less than two readings of the Antigone), Zupančič discounts his understanding the supreme “law” (of necessity) determining Antigone’s choices through analogy to the Holy - or Being’s rising presence.

Several issues that are worth discussing in the author’s multi-layered interpretation are as follows, but in no way do these basic points exhaust the richness and complexity of the reading:

The author raises the concern with civic law or rule and order and the underlying sense of violence and lawlessness that always simmers below the surface with the potential for fissures developing, setting the stage for a powerful eruption of the (Real) ontological “excess” into the symbolic (ontic) realm, which cannot be captured in language or controlled and squelched through systematic civic state functioning. Here, the excess of the Real (ontological) rears its head to disrupt the smooth functioning of the symbolic (ontic) order. So, the notion of an ethical civic “law” is never pure, e.g., the laws of a democratic system harbor the history of violent “lawlessness” and “undemocratic” and “unethical” practices (like slavery in the US).

Antigone too has a sorted and obscene history - her family’s atē - that is traceable to Oedipus and is embodied in the so-called cursed driving the Theban Cycle. Antigone is at once a product and victim of the system, a “terrorist” that challenges it and in doing so, threatens its stability. “Antigone’s singular fate embodies a structural impasse in the symbolic order- the impasse that comes to light…at moments of crisis and requires restructuring of the symbolic order…Antigone does not embody the structural impasse but, rather, the excess that it inevitably produces” (p. 81). Creon instantiates state excess and violence, which in an ironic turn, are “sanctioned” by the state in the character of a lawgiver, Creon. Antigone forces Creon to “push the limit all the way through, until the symbolic law, the limit of which he pushes, crashes on him and the rest of the city,” (p. 16), and this is an act of hubris, exposing Creon’s hamartia (tragic flaw/error).

The author argues that death in terms of “mortality” (as an ontological structure, finitude, if you will) is sheltered within the Real and its implication cannot be completely grasped in and through the symbolic, it is beyond language and linked with the drive “desire” and the ever-present possibility of “violence.” Ceremonial funerary rites represent a way in which to allow “death to coincide with itself,” to offer a sense of closure that would of course include respect for the dead body (and the deceased memory). But Creon, in denying such rites to Polyneices, is in fact “killing the dead a second time,” and in doing so, unleashes what might be termed the presence and dangerous specter of the “undead.” In the double hubristic act of denying burial and sentencing Antigone to death, Creon awakens a powerful and primordial force that can never be contained in or ordered by the symbolic, and hence this force (drive) ruptures that order.

Creon is thus attempting to integrate such acts into the symbolic, “into the historical memory of Thebes,” through the strange and sinful attempt “to integrate the traumatic excess into the symbolic by symbolically excluding it from it…this is why it returns in the Real with a vengeance, flaring up in the center of the tragedy” (p. 40).

Her actions, as opposed to their “universalization,” speak directly to the specific and subjective perspective (one of many parallax views) of Antigone and her family’s unsettling deeds (atē), the history into which she and her brother Polyneices were born - Antigone, it is important to note has in fact three brothers. “She ‘immortalizes’ the family atē by binding it irrevocably to her own mortal (ontic) individuality…her own singular act of interrupting, breaking all ties with her world” - attaching herself to the “unburied, rotting body of her brother, as if wrapping the rotting body and its undead life in her act and her destiny” (p. 49).

Indeed, one of the unique aspects of this reading is the move from universalization of themes to the particularizing of themes - recognizing the unique (ontic) aspects of existence as they are set within and in some sense “destined” by the ontological. Yes, there is a higher “law” of history, but this law plays out in unique ways, and Antigone is the guardian and ultimate victim of the particular (subjective) manifestation of this law as it concerns her family lineage, her family atē.

“The violent, splitting emergence if desire affirms, or rather, re-established the ultimate contingent rule of necessity, in this case of the family’s atē” (p. 80). The tragic “crime,” as an event, is the subjectification of the problem Antigone instantiates and lives-unto-death. So, the universalization that occurs here is related to the way all of humanity will undergo their own, unique, and never fully repeatable (mimetic) situations, with accompanying responsibilities and demands, occurrences, where Antigone is but one, albeit powerful and moving, representation of this phenomenon.

Academics will most certainly find this new interpretation of the play valuable, and it might be said to sit nicely within the contemporary (Continental) tradition of revisiting the Greek plays, harvesting them for literary, philosophical, and psychological insights, e.g., The Returns of Antigone: Interdisciplinary Essays, T. Chanter & S. Kirkland, eds. (SUNY Press, 2014).

Dr. James M. Magrini
Former: Philosophy/College of DuPage

[Diego · Rating 4 out of 5]

«La subjetividad es algo distinto de esta valorización neoliberal de las individualidades; es "histérica" en su esencia. No apunta a la unicidad o a sus derechos personales, sino a lo que está podrido en el estado de cosas dado, en el orden de las cosas. La histeria nunca es solo un problema personal: es el problema de una cierta estructuración del poder y de los lazos sociales. Y aunque es cierto que el histérico habitualmente es parte de la configuración que denuncia, también es cierto que la suya es la posición subjetiva que hace que este problema sea perceptible e imposible de ignorar. En este preciso sentido, el problema del histérico es casi siempre nuestro problema también, tengamos o no el cuidado de escucharlo. Y esto no simplemente porque lo haga nuestro problema, sino porque el problema en realidad existe independientemente de él o ella, "objetivamente". La histeria es la subjetivación de ese problema, no simplemente un "problema subjetivo".»

[Salvador Ramírez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este libro es un ensayo dividido en tres capítulos cortos, el cual es una relectura filosófica de la tragedia griega de Antígona. Una tragedia que resurge continuamente en la historia humana, a pesar de ser un relato tan antiguo, uno que surge cada que hay una crisis social, como sostiene la autora. Tomando en cuenta que Antígona no es una heroína trágica en el sentido clásico (no es la reina o gobernante, como tampoco busca ser una figura amable para el lector), pero genera una tragedia seguir su deseo: enterrar a su hermano a pesar de la prohibición por parte del Rey Creonte (su tío).

El libro inicia con una discusión de la fundación del Estado, en cómo Creonte impone una regla excesiva sobre la muerte de Polinices (no debe de ser enterrado como lo marcan las tradiciones y debe dejarse su cadáver abandonado para pudrirse al ser considerado un traidor a la ciudad) y es con esta regla, con su palabra, la que inaugura su reinado y un nuevo orden. Con ello pretende establecer la expulsión y humillación de los traidores del reinado y su falta de descanso en la muerte, justificado como parte del bienestar de la ciudad. Es la oposición de Antígona a obedecer esta nueva regla, y la jerarquía de su familia (Creonte como su tío, hermano de su madre), es lo que hace temblar toda la fundación del nuevo reinado al darle sepulcro a su hermano. Es decir, al sacar a la luz el exceso de Creón para constituir un nuevo reinado y arriesgándolo todo (aún su vida) por cumplir con su deseo. Es decir, con su deseo muestra la inconsistencia del nuevo orden social.

La obra de Antígona toca la importancia de los ritos funerarios, en cómo es un rito simbólico para apresar lo no-muerto del sujeto (la pulsión) y hacerla coincidir con la muerte empírica. La falta de ritos funerarios implica que también se impone un castigo a sus familiares y seguidores.

Finalmente, cierra el libro tocando tres temas: una discusión sobre la familia de Edipo, seguido de la discusión sobre el incesto y el deseo en Antígona. En la obra hay una pregunta continua de qué la mueve, pero eso es la pregunta sobre el deseo de Antígona. Aquí es donde reinterpreta que para Antígona se juega algo más que la búsqueda de dar sepulcro a su hermano, sino también enterrar al último de sus hermanos con quien comparte el origen del incesto, y la relación con Edipo que también es tanto su padre su hermano. Un incesto que niega la idea de la no repetición que se juega en cada nuevo linaje (que se relaciona con la inmortalidad y la mala infinitud – una reproducción de lo mismo al infinito). Por eso menciona que podría dejar a su esposo o hijos sin enterrar o pudrirse (de donde surge parte del título del libro), pero no a su hermano, pues no tiene sustituto. Para lo cual está dispuesta incluso hasta la muerte.

Sobre la discusión del incesto recurre más a la obra de Edipo que Antígona para explicarlo. Plantea que el lenguaje es incestuoso, en contraposición a la explicación de Sassure que plantea al lenguaje como diferencias y que el sentido del mismo se produce en esta red diferencial. Para Zupančič la estructura del lenguaje no es pura: “Aquí el lenguaje funciona y, paradójicamente, también tiene sentido, no a través de una estructura puramente diferencial, sino a través de la contaminación, el contagio, la coincidencia, el cortocircuito, a través de enlaces imposibles, "incestuosos", entre palabras o sonidos, incestuosos porque ignoran la ley de la diferencia. Así que podríamos decir que en el lenguaje sólo hay diferencias, salvo que también hay incesto. Tal vez así podría resumirse en una frase la aportación freudiana a la lingüística.” (P. 62).

Además, discute la función simbólica del incesto en la sociedad, la prohibición de algo que es imposible y que lo hace manejable. Más allá de la explicación de Lévi-Strauss que señala que es un taboo que obliga a salir del grupo para intercambiar, es decir, explica la transición de naturaleza a cultura. Zupančič señala: “Lo que sugiero aquí es diferente; se refiere a la forma en que el imposible e inexistente pasaje o conjunción de naturaleza y cultura (relaciones simbólicas) -precisamente como imposible- "explica" el tabú del incesto, su función. El tabú del incesto está ahí para encubrir, con su prohibición, la imposibilidad de este pasaje o conjunción; es el caso supremo de prohibir lo imposible, de prohibir lo que es en sí mismo imposible -una operación fundamental que hace lo imposible simbólicamente manejable, abordable.” (P.70).

Finalmente, un posible ejemplo contemporáneo de la posición de Antígona podría aplicarse en el caso de las "madres buscadoras" de México. Con la llamada "guerra contra el narco" han desaparecido miles de personas. Muchas de ellas han sido asesinadas y enterradas en fosas clandestinas. La posición del gobierno mexicano que empezó la guerra contra el narco fue de evitar poner mucho empeño en la búsqueda de las personas desaparecidas, a muchos de los cuales calificaba de criminales. Las madres y familiares de ellos durante años han buscado sus restos y han encontrado muchas fosas clandestinas. Han recibido muchas amenazas para que paren de hacerlo (puede ser el narco o gente corrupta del gobierno) y cuando no lo han hecho han resultado asesinadas.

Libro altamente recomendado para interesados en la filosofía y en una relectura radical de Antígona.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The ease with which the term “terrorist” is used today to dismiss those critics who point to the obscene, “terrorist” other side of state power could be seen as a clear indication of the growing reliance of state power itself on that other, obscene side. It would also be possible to see it as a symptom of the disintegration of the state in many of its aspects, particularly those where it is supposed to provide the infrastructure of the commons and of public interest.”

Reading and loving this after some underwhelming adaptations has me like “I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists' ideas as well as the critics' thinking.”

[Ezechiel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great and accessible analysis of Antigone and the concept of desire, but also the symbolism of funeral rites and many others. I particularly liked the ending when the author gives Antigone’s desire a political implication. Desire, she argues, is not the quest for enjoyment (which otherwise would be fulfilled by consumerism) but the radical claim that something fundamental is lacking (expressed by Antigone’s “no”) - maybe something that has been made impossible by overconsumption. This is an invitation to see desire as a quest that should never be extinguished, rather than something that can be filled by enjoyment.

[FluffyNyctea]

Cannot stop thinking about this book right now. Show them the violence, show them with piercing honesty. Show them the horror of the everyday. Show them how cruelty is disguised as legality. And LET THEM ROT.

[marok · Rating 5 out of 5]

Čisto se mi je zbledlo

[Cobarde · Rating 5 out of 5]

//Volver a la podredumbre que oprime// Un sinfín de pensamiento señores y señoras! Aquí hay sentimiento...

[Nat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tengo este libro en español (no está en Goodreads) y me gustó bastante como está escrito. Lo mejor para mí, fue el capítulo 3, con lo del incesto y deseo.

[Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zupancic (2023) honed in on an unsettling statement Antigone made. She would only honour her brother by burying him but hypothetically if it were her husband or child lying dead in the field she would let them rot. Antigone is the guardian of the Oedipal crime family. Antigone and her siblings would never exist if not for her father/brother coupling with her mother/sister. Antigone doesn't survive to have a husband or children of her own. With her death and the rest of the Oedipal family the misfortune of Oedipus' blameless but still criminal act points to a general misfortune that says something about humanity. Antigone's plight comes into focus whenever there is a shift in the social fabric and becomes a symbol of law and morality (2). Zupancic suggests that Antigone transmits a dilemma, a parallax view between state power and laws and eternal, unwritten divine laws. Antigone is a figure of pure desire because she incites us to ask 'what does she want' and her fate produces an excess surplus value in the structural impasse of the symbolic order and shows what is rotten in the state of the order of things.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely strong evidence for the case that the foundational text of western civilization is neither Plato nor the Bible but Sophocles' Theban trilogy.