Charles Melman and Jean-Pierre Lebrun, two eminent French psychoanalysts, met in Paris from 2001 to 2002 to talk about contemporary society and its implications for the constitution of subjectivity. Their conversation was published in a book with the title “Men Without Gravity: Enjoyment at any Price” (2003), not currently translated into English. Several others have written extensively about late modernity from different perspectives, however Melman and Lebrun present us with a psychoanalytical analysis. In this blog entry I will follow some of the arguments presented in the conversations between the two as an attempt to connect society, subjectivity, and clinical work.
Melman claims that our society is currently facing unparalleled social and subjective changes. In fact, there is a “new economy of the psyche” characterized by new ways of thinking, judging, eating, having sex, getting together, living in family, being part of a country, having ideals, etc. Overall, life has changed dramatically. Melman and Lebrun connected these changes to a shift from a society based on prohibition and repression to a society based on pleasure and enjoyment. Whereas the old culture was the culture of neurosis caused by the repression of desire, the new culture is based on the free expression of desire. The new morality is that “… every human being should find something in its environment which should provide complete satisfaction. If this is not the case, it is a scandal, a deficit, a fraud, an offense”. (p. 31).
But how has subjectivity changed in the new culture? In the old society, subjectivity would be based on the repression of forbidden desires. This repression organized the neurotic unconscious with its subsequent feeling of guilt. In the new society, desire is not something to be repressed but to be expressed without any constraints or limits, at all times. The subject is not the classical neurotic from the beginning of psychoanalysis, but a subject “without gravity”, i.e. without any points of reference, without limits, without structure, a liquid self, shapeless, free flowing, rootless, continuously creating itself. Shame, not guilt, is the dominant affect in the new economy. Melman adds that “Today we are not subjects, well defined, rooted into something, with character traits… but its opposite, subjects who are flexible and perfectly capable of modifying themselves, able to moving to new places, to continually change, of being entrepreneurs of their careers or the most diverse experiences” (p. 39).
Woody Allen portrays the tragic neurotic from the old culture in his movies. Conflicted, puzzled, inhibited, torn between sublimating or expressing desire, riddled with a sense of guilt, and fear of castration.
And we should ask ourselves, but isn’t this a good thing? That we abolished neurosis and its tyranny of repression? That we can have everything we want without having to feel frustrated? Melman and Lebrun advise us caution about the libertarian self and point out some significant implications for subjectivity in the society of enjoyment.
In the first place, the psyche as what is capable of representing and symbolizing is absent or severely compromised. Since it is pain, frustration, absence, or distance from something what precisely demands for that something which is lost and absent to be symbolized or represented, the real presence of every object of desire deems the symbolic work unnecessary. The subject now always seeks the real thing, the material object, sensation, experience, and the image replaces representation. Consequently, Melman claims that we possess “a formidable freedom, but at the same time absolutely sterile for thought” (p. 29) and that “we think very little” (p. 29).
And if language is the medium of thought, what can reveal a different place within the subject with its misunderstandings, double meanings, lapses of the tongue, metaphors, poetry, or reveries, the current use of language is very different. It is language without a subject, without subjectivity. The new language needs to be unequivocal, clear, direct, raw, and brief. In short, language became technical and concrete: “And your point is?”, “Be brief and concise”, “Train your 5-minute elevator pitch”, etc. Consequently, the subject becomes deprived of the personal symbolic, of what can be subjectively created and (re)created inside the psychic space and independent from the real external object. In fact, the symbolic can have a life of its own inside the mind and create something else new, different, surprising, or even revolutionary. Without symbols and representation what can only exist is external reality and the repetition of sameness.
Secondly, without symbolization there is no interior and no unconscious. The subject has no internal home where the unconscious can come into existence. Without a sense of interior necessary to hold the unconscious, the subject becomes exposed, fragile, depressed, and dependent on the external environment, circumstances, and reality in order to exist. And life in external reality demands transparency, exhibition, and constant communication. This external recognition needs to be incessant and in the form of being able to fit into what reality and society demands from us: to perform, produce, be positive and pleasant, perfect, or do well economically. It is also a subject dependent on the ever-changing fashions and trends because the lack of an internal sense of self or lack of symbolic identification leaves the individual in a constant seeking for an identity which can only be found on the outside. Nonetheless, underneath this search there is a sense of helplessness and lack of references, informed by fatigue, depression, and anxiety: “Who will I become today?”, “What do you want from me? I do not know what you want form me”. Interestingly enough, the subject without gravity believes itself to be revolutionary and original but in reality is a docile compliant subject who cannot say no nor rebel, because it has no point of reference to rebel against, no ethical ontological position, no philosophical points, but also cannot afford to lose acceptance and receiving gratification from the exterior.
In the book, Melman connects the impossibility of the unconscious and the lack of symbolization with the current dominance of capitalism and consumerism. He argues that capitalism and consumerism are favorite activities for the subject without gravity since it provides endless objects connected with enjoyment without any limits. It assures “a state of addiction towards objects” (p. 56) where “Fantasy is dead” (p. 57).
Edward Bernays, Freud’s nephew and the inventor of propaganda, worked with the tobacco industry in the US to persuade women to smoke more. Cigarettes were termed “Torches of freedom”, becoming an object of emancipation for the equality rights of women. Enjoyment, capitalism, and emancipation working together.
Thirdly, today we are witnessing the fall of the paternal figure, i.e. the signifier which imposes limits and the Law. Figures perceived as possessing symbolic authority such as politicians, physicians, the police, psychoanalysts, teachers, etc. become discredited. The problem according to Melman is that the absence of symbolic figures who impose limits and the Law make it impossible for desire to be fulfilled. Fulfilling a desire always has something transgressive, out of the norm, which needs to happen against an authority. Without limits there can be no satisfaction nor desire because there is nothing to rebel against. If everything is always permitted and nothing is forbidden, then nothing will ever bring satisfaction. Moreover, the fall of the paternal function implies less participation of the subject in the social community. Whereas in the society of neurosis individuals would gather around to acknowledge, hold, and mourn the collective repressed, made bearable by communion, traditions, rituals, myths, etc., in the society of enjoyment individuals have no need for collective mourning and only gather in the collective feast when individuals have a guarantee of enjoyment.
Paradoxically, the absence of the paternal figure who imposes limits on desire and rules to fulfill desire invites a superego tyrannical parental figure. This tyrannical father or mother is welcomed by the group eager to submit voluntarily to a form of “authority that would alleviate the anguish and anxiety, dictate individuals what to do and what not to do, determine what is good and bad, remove all the current confusion” (p. 38). This can be seen nowadays in the rise of nationalistic and extreme political and religious movements. The leader embodies the longing for a lost father who imposes the Law and limits, albeit in a tyrannical and violent way. This leader uses political discourses that promise to “clean” the confusion and establish order. However, this leader is more like a tyrannical father without little symbolic power or interiority, and its policies are no longer informed by a clear political program or ideology but are more like a set of management policies based on economic reasoning and profit. The result can only be violence.
Lastly, the structure of the subject without gravity is not neurosis but perversion. Perversion not in a sexual sense, but in the way of using refusal and denial (Verleugnung) as a defense against having to deal with contradictory, unpleasant, limiting, painful aspects of self and reality. Whereas the neurotic knows that they cannot “have the cake and eat it too”, which demands psychic work and repression (Verdrängung), the perverse is someone who will “eat the cake and have it too”. Aspects of reality that are too upsetting or that could impose limits to enjoyment, are actively denied, erased, and effaced. The subject simply does not want to know.
Having described the subject without gravity and the new economy of the psyche, we ask ourselves: What is the role of psychoanalysis and clinicians in this new society? And what are the issues that bring individuals into psychotherapy or analysis? Melman and Lebrun claim that some of the issues that individuals are facing today are related with the struggle to understand and make decisions in a world that is characterized by violence, an attitude of indifference before death and euthanasia, the absence of rites, new forms of sexuality, changes in the rights of children, the supremacy of economic thinking, the rise of addictions, the emergence of new symptoms (e.g. male anorexia, ADHD), the tyranny of consensus, the belief in authoritarian solutions, the need for total transparency, the weight of the media, the importance of the image where the good is what is beautiful, the use and overuse of the legal system to solve every conflict and disagreement, the victimization of life, the alienation in the virtual world, the demand for a safe life without risks, the consumption of an identity through objects, etc.
The problem is that without an unconscious, a psychic space, or the use of symbolization to work through these contemporary issues, the subject struggles to think and deal with these issues. Incapable of working through internally the subject now demands reparation only from the exterior. Reparation and transformation become something that cannot happen internally, but externally by society because the subject was determined by the collective in the first place.
In terms of the role of psychoanalysis and the clinic, since there is no more authority or reference that could sustain subjectivity, the analyst is no longer “the subject who is supposed to know” the unconscious. In fact, there is little to no transference towards the analyst. Subjects do not come to analysis with an expectation that the analyst will have a place for them in the analyst’s mind, but only with a request to be cured without ever being subjectively involved in their own symptoms, pain, and unhappiness. The subject is not implicated in its demand because it never had a place to belong to, a place to exist in someone else’s mind, in the first place. As a result, the psychotherapist is someone who must provide practical, concrete solutions, pedagogical advice, skills or psychoeducation which in the subject’s fantasy will automatically remove symptoms without any need for subjectivity. The dominant forms of psychotherapy in the new society should not account for any divisions within the subject, between conscious and the unconscious, any depth, nor consider any sense of bewilderment from inside ourselves. Psychotherapists have now become technicians, not of the mind because the mind is something which escapes evaluation, quantification, measurability, material qualities, etc. but of behavior which can be easily observable, measurable, and controllable.
Paweł Kuczynski is a Polish artist who uses art to represent and denounce the complex and troubling issues of our contemporary society. Narcissus falling in love with the reflection provided by social media.
Although at times Melman appears to be more on the conservative side, he claims that he is not a defender of the old society of patriarchy, neurosis, and repression. Throughout the book Melman maintains an analytic stance towards the subject of his study. He does not offer any solutions, nor advocate for psychoanalysis to take any position. Melman is interested in observing, describing, and understanding from a psychoanalytical perspective these new forms of subjectivity. Also, Melman is aware that there might be a sense of defeat or helplessness for psychoanalysis to face these contemporary challenges. And in fact, his analysis of modernity might be considered pessimistic. However, he adds that psychoanalysis must not fall into despair. But at the same time, psychoanalysts should not have any illusions regarding the limits of their therapeutic actions or capacity to cure.
To conclude, the new economy of desire is paradoxical. One the one hand, it is a society that commands for the subject to enjoy and have pleasure. But on the other hand, it makes satisfaction impossible. Desire, as what animates the subject, requires discomfort, lack, absence. Without absence, desire is impossible. Melman adds “Desire is the great tormenting force that will not allow us to rest, makes us work, to run, move, to disobey, to make an effort, etc. Meaning, to live life. Without desire there is the dominance of the death drive." (p. 60), and that “Comfort is the representative of sedation, immobility, immutability and substitutes the vertical by the horizontal of silence which prefigures death in the place of the up roaring tumult of existence”. (p. 60). Without desire, Thanatos becomes more dominant than Eros. Towards the end of the book, Melman discloses his hope for a society that does not need to rest on neurosis nor perversion, but a new humanism able to “be liberated from neurosis, guilt, from forgiveness, but also from the false promises of perversion…” (109). Lebrun asks him, “Isn’t this an utopian wish?”, Melman replies affirmatively. In the meantime, while we search or wait for utopia, we must continue to live between Eros and Thanatos in civilization, as Freud mentioned.
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