According to Freud, in order for us to enjoy love, there need to be obstacles to attaining our objects of desire, and if there is a lack, we, ourselves, create such obstacles in order to obtain any deep psychical and physical pleasure from engaging in the act of love. Lacan improves upon this theory, as Zizek! notes, stating that the obstacles we create are there to conceal the impossibility of attaining our object of desire. The object of desire or the Lady in “courtly love” is, in fact, not an object at all, but a void upon which we project our desires and, thereby, which we transform from void into object through the expectations that this void-made-object could fulfill our desires if snared. We entirely forget, though, that it is we who have created the object which embodies the fulfillment of these desires and the obstacles to it, and arguably, that we have created the desires as well. Lacan argues that, without these self-constructed obstacles, one would be able to see the Lady for what she is, a “black hole.” However, our own hindrances, or, detours, supplant the void and both actualize and perpetuate the mirage that is the object of desire. In addition to creating the object, the detours then lead us to the elevation of the object into the das ding, the unattainable Real, which, in turn, actualizes desire. The fulfillment of desire is, after all, the end of desire. Thus, the Lady begins as an ‘unserviceable’ void, upon which we create an object, whose unattainability transforms the unserviceable void into a serviceable one. The void starts out as the source of nothing and becomes the source of desire. (is that it?) Zizek! makes the point that it is the end of this desire, which terrifies the lover deeply. Arguably, the knight fears the end of desire for the Lady because it means the end of his quest and his suffering, which dictates the nobility upon which his very identity relies. An immensely different kind of suffering, one of dying without death, would ensue, were the quest to end.
Moreover, can one still say that the Lady is a creature with whom one is unable to empathize as she is elevated into the realm of Lacanian’s Real and say that the Lady is not a spiritualization. In my opinion, one need not to empathize with one’s spiritual guide in order for the guide to properly carry out his or, in this case, her, or perhaps even more accurately, its role. A saint, one with superior spiritual knowledge or experience, is necessarily inhuman and distanced. The argument Zizek! provides to counter the Lady’s spiritualization is the “unspiritual” nature of the Lady’s demands such as licking her ‘arse’. “The Lady is thus as far as possible from any kind of purified spirituality” (2408). Even if this example does not reflect a purified spirituality on the part of the Lady, can one argue that she is an “automaton” as Zizek! does through this example. I would argue no because the knight’s fear is fecal odor and the possible urination upon his head from the Lady. The fact that the Lady can defecate places her in the realm of human and animal not somewhere beyond. These necessities do not identify the Lady as radically other, while they may eliminate a sense of her spiritual purification, but they are the foundation of an innate comradeship.

Something I noticed throughout the semester is that, like Saussure, theorists split their object of research and analysis into several parts. Sigmund Freud follows this way of analysis in his “Interpretation of Dreams” but there are some discrepancies. This chapter of his book gives us an insight to the psychoanalytic manner of interpreting dreams. Before talking about dreams, Freud introduces us to the idea of the unconscious by explains the Oedipus complex. Freud says, “It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulses towards our mother and our first hatred and first murderous wish against our father” (Freud 816). This statement give us an insight of what is the unconscious mind; the unconscious, the id, mind contains our deepest sexual desires, murderous wish and any kind of thought that is considered immoral and/or unrealistic . But these thoughts do not get to the conscious mind, and if they do then we have a case of psychoneurosis. With this said, let’s look at Freud’s analysis of dreams.

Freud split dreams into two elements. Freud states that in order to properly interpret dreams its necessary to analyze the latent content and manifest. The latent content contains the “dream-thoughts” which are the thoughts in the id inaccessible to the ego. On the other hand, the manifest content contains the “dream-content” which are the events or pictographic symbols that we tend to remember when we wake up. These are the two elements that compose a dream. According to Freud, the dream-content “seems like a transcript of the dream thoughts into another mode of expression…” (Freud 819). What it means is that the process of dreaming is about turning dream-thoughts into dream content.

At first glance, this relationship is similar to how Saussure splits language. Saussure describes language as a system of sign and split the sign in two parts. Likewise, Freud split dreams. Saussure splits the sign into the signified and the signifier. The signifier is what we use to express the concept or signified. Similarly, the manifest contest expresses what is present in the latent content. Both theorist go into a deep explanation on how this relation works. However, this similarity does not get any further.

There are discrepancies between these theories. Saussure describes the relation between the signifier and signified as arbitrary. In addition, language, in Saussure’s perspective, is linear; it is a simple and direct connection easy to understand because language is a natural tool we use to survive. On the other hand, Freud’s interpretation of dreams states that the relation between the latent content and manifest content is transitional. That is to say, the former is the translation of the latter (Freud 818-9). Additionally, the relation between the latent content and manifest content is quite complex due to several reasons: One, the unconscious or id do not speak the same language we consciously do. Therefore, accurate translation and interpretation of the dream is extremely difficult, if not impossible. Moreover, the dream-content can have a meaning of its own or not make sense at all despite being one side of a coin. We have to analyze it deep and critically enough to grasp an idea of what is the dream-thought is.

We have to go through many layers to achieve complete understanding. We have to consider what Freud called “condensation.” Freud says, “Dreams are brief, meagre and laconic in comparison with the rage and wealth of the dream-thoughts” (Freud 819). It means that manifest content only contains a piece or a condensed version of the dream-thought from which we have to decipher the deeper meaning. We also have to consider that the dream-thoughts are “censored” when transfer to the ego or conscious because it is information that would affect us psychologically (Freud 820). To sum up Freud’s theory about dream interpretation have some similarities with Saussure’s Theory of language but they have a lot of differences.

According to Freud “I announce that the fetish is a substitute for the penis, I shall create disappointment; so i hasten to add that it is not a substitute for any chance penis.” (Freud 842) He then goes on to say the people with fetishes are substituting the mother’s imaginary penis. When we first discover that our parents have different sexual organs that we refuse to believe that our mother had a penis that had been castrated because as men we would feel in danger of losing our own. He relates this to our own narcissism and how we repress the fact that our mothers do not have a penis and use the fetish as a substitute. In class we were asked about our own fetish and no one wanted to share for what I presume to be fear of judgment, but nevertheless I will share mine. I like big butts and I cannot lie. There I have said it now lets move on to how Freud would analysis me. If I were to sit on a couch and tell Freud about my fetish he might come to his conclusion that at a point during my youth I noticed my mother did not have a penis when she bent over or some weird thing like that. But this theory could not be more wrong. First and foremost both genders are able to have fetishes and this limits fetishism to only males. Second in my personal experience fetishism does not have to substitute for any kind of penis whether it be a mother imaginary penis because it does not fit to the growth of the human mind. What I mean is at a young age I would not have a memory of not seeing my mother not having a penis and repress it until the age where we start having sexual interest and have it manifest. I would think that the manifestation of a fetish would spark around the time of sexual identity.

Another reason why Freud’s thoughts on fetishism does not work is in the read we had for Zizek. Zizek talks about the movie “The Crying Game” where the character Fergus is told to visit a captured British soldier’s girlfriend Dil.  Fergus falls in love with Dil and purses her. After finally accepting his pursing of her Dil gives in and when they are about to have relations it is revealed that Dil is a transvestite as we call it now transsexual. Fergus confused and put off in this moment. Also in this moment Zizek says “This scene of the failed sexual encounter is structured as the exact inversion of the scene referred to by Freud as the primordial trauma of fetishism: the child gaze, sliding down the naked female body towards the sexual organ, is shocked to find nothing where one to expect to see something (a penis) in the case of “The Crying Game”, the shock is caused when the eye finds something where it expected nothing.” (Zizek 2421) This moment is ironic because the repression is no longer repressed. In fact there is “mom’s penis” but it does not bring satisfaction for Fergus. It does not satisfy his sexual needs for the repression to manifest therefore fetishism in Freud’s eyes does not work. Speaking as a heterosexual male I do not see how in fact I would be worried about castration when I noticed my parents have different sexual organs. Could it just be that boys are boy and girls are girls? What I mean is when we categorize people as children we can say mommy is a girl because she does not have a penis and daddy is a boy because he does have one. Instead Freud makes it seem like men with a fetish is trying to substitute for what the mother does not have and that just is not the case.

Blog #2 linguistics

Language-the concept of a sound created from the movement of the lips and tongue. Yet still without doing so one is able to recite a mental verse with the sound images on our head. The concept of the “phoneme” which is the sound of the word determined by vocal activity is eliminated from the Saussure’s views on language and the mind. The concept in translated into a sound image by the carrier we associate with the concept as an individual. We settle on the vocal activity to express this concept because we know no better option.

The arbitrary sign-within every society there is a set based of expressions, which are based on principal.

The function of language regarding thought is to create the precise and individual phonic sound in the expression of idea to link thought and sound.

The division between “thought-sound” is shapeless and implies division; Saussure compares the process to air pressure, water and atmospheric change, which turn into waves. When its windy the waves are larger and the opposite when not. The signified (wave) is more or less depending on the link (carrier), which represents the scale of the wave in this case (sound-image). The only reason the water has big waves or small waves are because it only knows to react or be so from the carrier to the concept or signified to signifier.

The way language and money relate is they both can be exchanged and compared. Exchanged for something of dissimilar value, which is to be, determined i.e. a piece of bread. It is compared to something similar in the exchange from a pound or dollars, which may slightly vary in exact value, put, serve same concrete purpose.

Saussure’s comparison to Greek architecture in defining the difference between “syntagmatic” and “associative” relations in style to words in groups which tie together, linking to part of a whole and at the same time remaining individual.

The individuality in speech in how one combines the words from these various groups together. The freedom of combination results that all synthases are not equally free.

Blog 5

The Cost Disease: Started From The Bottom Now…

The high arts and the individual’s reality of earning a living in a capitalist society follow two general realities according to Ross. One, the individual who holds the skills necessary to obtain intellectual professions such as professors, writers, painters etc. spends as much time, if not more obtaining the qualifications in order to hold these positions, yet receive much less capital gain than the, “others” for the honor they feel they receive in working in the profession they do. They feel it is an honor and privilege to be qualified enough to hold such a position of prestige that to place a monetary value on it is beneath them. In addition the cost of the performance has risen with the heightened technology-of actors per say which leave these intellectuals having to learn and develop more and more to keep up with the desires of the audience-special effects on Broadway. The amount of money to produce such a spectacle is much higher and the person who is affected by the increase in the price in the production is the amount the artist is paid. We all see how well that worked out for the actor who played Spiderman-who was actually harmed quite badly during a live performance. All due to the audience demands of artificial excitement in the art of story telling. Do the special effects make the performance any better? Is it impossible to imagine a flying spider man, rather than see the actor, we know cannot fly and shot cobwebs from his finger tips, pretend to do so with these “special” effects.

Who is to blame for the artists willingness to provide services in which they worked hard toward mastering, yet receive unfair compensation for the services they provide?

The response from the public is enhanced when there is mystery behind the artist’s work, especially if there is a public message and agenda behind the master’s skill. A perfect example of this is Banksy-a graffiti artist whose career and prestige is based soley on his ability to remain concealed. If we knew who he was and that he was capitalizing off of his very controversial and sometimes even illegal public displays-would we believe it? Would we care? Or would it just be some more spray paint vandalism?

I found the very last tid bit on the black artist and the demands of being paid in full to be interesting. The already suppressed nature of the black culture in turn generated an artist who demanded to be “paid in full”. The concept of being, “all about the Benjamin’s” in comparison to the white bohemian was not looked down upon. The “starving artist” is celebrated and recognized in the white community as heroic. Contrary, to the already suppressed history of the black community, talking about money and material gain is celebrated and remains a lyrical trend- in the hip hop community.