How to Read Lacan

1. The Unconscious is Structured Like a Language

‘The unconscious is structured as a language.’

Unconscious logic. Lacan reframes the unconscious not as a reservoir of irrational drives, but as a system governed by its own grammar and logic. This challenges the traditional view of the unconscious as a chaotic force needing taming. Instead, it's a site where traumatic truths find expression through a unique symbolic order.

Language and truth. The unconscious "talks" and "thinks," revealing a traumatic truth that the individual must learn to live with. This perspective shifts the focus from conquering the id to daring to approach the site of one's own truth. It's not about identifying with a deep truth, but about confronting an unbearable one.

Implications for psychoanalysis. This linguistic turn has profound implications for psychoanalysis, suggesting that the unconscious operates according to its own rules of signification. Understanding these rules is key to unlocking the secrets of the self and confronting the core of human existence.

2. The Big Other is a Virtual Symbolic Order

Is it with the gifts of Danaoi* or with the passwords that give them their salutary non-sense that language, with the law, begins?

Symbolic constitution. The "big Other" represents the symbolic order, society's unwritten constitution, which directs and controls our actions. It's the sea we swim in, an all-pervasive agency that remains ultimately impenetrable. This order is not a transcendental a priori, but is sustained by continuous collective activity.

Fragility of the Other. Despite its grounding power, the big Other is fragile and virtual, existing only insofar as subjects act as if it exists. Its status is similar to an ideological cause like Communism or Nation, actual only when individuals believe in it and act accordingly. This virtual character is why a letter always arrives at its destination, even unsent, addressed to the big Other itself.

Genesis of the Other. The symbolic order emerges from a gift, an offering that marks its content as neutral to pose as a gift. Human communication is characterized by reflexivity, with every act symbolizing the fact of communication. This is exemplified by "empty gestures," offers made or meant to be rejected, establishing social links through symbolic exchange.

3. Interpassivity: Outsourcing Our Experiences

The emotional commentary is done for you.

Passive consumption. Interpassivity is the uncanny double of interactivity, where the object itself takes from us our own passivity, enjoying the show instead of us. This is seen in phenomena like canned laughter, where the soundtrack laughs for us, relieving us of the duty to enjoy ourselves.

Examples of interpassivity. This concept extends to various aspects of modern life, such as compulsively recording movies without watching them, or prayer wheels that pray for us. Even pornography can function interpassively, where simply observing others enjoy is sufficient.

False activity. Interpassivity leads to false activity, where people act to prevent something from happening, ensuring nothing changes. This is exemplified by the obsessional neurotic who talks constantly to avoid confronting underlying tensions. The critical step against such a mode is to withdraw into passivity and refuse to participate, clearing the ground for true activity.

4. Desire is Always the Other's Desire

man’s desire is the Other’s desire, in which the de/of/ provides what grammarians call a ‘subjective determination’ – namely, that it is qua/as/ Other that man desires …

Structured by the Other. Man's desire is structured by the "decentred" big Other, the symbolic order. What we desire is predetermined by this order, even when our desires are transgressive. This is because even transgression relies on what it transgresses.

Enigmatic desire. The subject desires only insofar as it experiences the Other as desiring, as the site of an unfathomable desire. The other confronts us with the fact that we ourselves do not know what we really desire, with the enigma of our own desire. This abyssal dimension of another human being is what Lacan calls the Thing (das Ding).

Ethical domestication. Resisting the ethical domestication of the neighbor, Lacan emphasizes the monstrosity of the neighbor, applying to them the term Thing. The function of the Law is not to retain proximity to the neighbor, but to keep them at a proper distance, shielding us against the monstrosity next door.

5. Fantasy Screens Us from the Real

Whenever the membranes of the egg in which the foetus emerges on its way to becoming a new-born are broken, imagine for a moment that something flies off, and that one can do it with an egg as easily as with a man, namely the hommelette, or the lamella.

Learning to desire. Fantasy teaches us how to desire, providing a "private" formula for sexual relationships. It's not about fantasizing about what we can't have, but about understanding what we desire in the first place. This role of fantasy hinges on the deadlock in our sexuality, as there is no universal guarantee of a harmonious sexual relationship.

What am I for others? Fantasy is an answer to the question, "What do others want from me? What do they see in me? What am I for those others?" It tells us what we are for our others, providing an identity that satisfies those around us. This intersubjective character is discernible even in elementary cases, like a child fantasizing about eating a strawberry cake to please their parents.

Objectively subjective. Fantasy is not objective or subjective, but "objectively subjective," the way things actually seem to you even if they don't seem that way to you. It's the "unknown knowns," the disavowed beliefs and suppositions we are not even aware of adhering to ourselves, but which nonetheless determine our acts and feelings.

6. The Superego Demands Enjoyment

Nothing forces anyone to enjoy except the superego. The superego is the imperative of jouissance – Enjoy!

Traumatic enjoyment. Jouissance, or enjoyment, is not simple pleasure, but a violent intrusion that brings more pain than pleasure. The superego, the cruel ethical agency, bombards us with impossible demands and then mocks our failures. This equation between jouissance and superego means that to enjoy is a twisted ethical duty.

Ego-Ideal vs. Superego. Lacan distinguishes between ideal ego, Ego-Ideal, and superego. The ideal ego is the idealized self-image, the Ego-Ideal is the agency whose gaze we try to impress, and the superego is the vengeful, sadistic agency. The superego is the anti-ethical agency, the stigmatization of our ethical betrayal.

The law of desire. The only proper ethical agency is the "law of desire," which tells you to act in accord with your desire. The Ego-Ideal forces us to betray the "law of desire" by adopting the "reasonable" demands of the existing socio-symbolic order. The superego exerts its unbearable pressure upon us on behalf of our betrayal of the "law of desire."

7. God is Unconscious: Atheism's True Form

The true formula of atheism is not God is dead – even by basing the origin of the function of the father upon his murder, Freud protects the father – the true formula of atheism is God is unconscious.

Modern belief. Modern atheists think they know that God is dead, but unconsciously continue to believe in God. Modernity is characterized by the subject who presents himself as a tolerant hedonist, but whose unconscious is the site of prohibitions. What is repressed is not illicit desires, but prohibitions themselves.

Everything is prohibited. "If God doesn't exist, then everything is prohibited" means that the more you perceive yourself as an atheist, the more your unconscious is dominated by prohibitions that sabotage your enjoyment. This is because the fall of oppressive authority gives rise to new and sterner prohibitions.

Commodity fetishism. Commodity fetishism is not located in our mind, but in our social reality itself. A bourgeois subject knows very well that there is nothing magic about money, but he nevertheless acts in real life as if he believes that money is a magical thing.

8. Perversion: Instrument of the Other's Will

Strictly speaking, perversion is an inverted effect of the phantasy. It is the subject who determines himself as an object, in his encounter with the division of subjectivity …

Totalitarianism. A true Stalinist politician loves mankind, yet carries out horrible purges and executions, conceiving of himself as exculpated for what he is doing. The sadistic pervert answers the question "How can the subject be guilty when he merely realizes an objective, externally imposed, necessity?" by subjectively assuming this objective necessity.

Nazi executioners. Nazi executioners were well aware that they were doing things that brought humiliation, suffering and death to their victims. The way out of this predicament was that "instead of saying: What horrible things I did to people!, the murderers would be able to say: What horrible things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties, how heavily the task weighed upon my shoulders!"

Religious fundamentalism. Religious fundamentalism shares the structures of a pervert, acting upon the presupposition that their acts are directly ordered and guided by divine will. The pervert claims direct access to some figure of the big Other, so that, dispelling all the ambiguity of language, he is able to act directly as the instrument of the big Other's will.

Last updated: March 15, 2025