Authors: RENÉ GIRARD
halting evolution of Freudian doctrine.
Undoubtedly "clinical findings" can be turned to almost any account, but we can hardly
expect them to serve as evidence for a consciousness, no matter how transitory, of
patricidal or incestuous desire. After all, it is precisely because this consciousness
refuses to yield to clinical observation that Freud is obliged to devise such unwieldy and
dubious concepts as those of the "unconscious" or "suppression."
And here we arrive at my principal complaint against Freud. The mythical element of
Freudianism has nothing to do -- despite traditional assertions to the contrary -- with the
nonconscious nature of those basic impulses that determine the individual's
psychological make-up. If my complaint were a reiteration of that well-worn theme, it
would undoubtedly be classified among the "reactionary" criticism of Freudianism. In
the final analysis, what I object to most is Freud's obstinate attachment -- despite all
appearances -- to a philosophy of consciousness. The mythical aspect of Freudianism is
founded on the conscious knowledge of patricidal and incestuous desire; only a brief
flash of consciousness, to be sure, a bright wedge of light between the darkness of the
first identifications and the unconscious -- but consciousness all the same. Freud's
stubborn attachment to this consciousness compels him to abandon both logic and
credibility. He first assumes this consciousness and then gets rid of it in a kind of safe-deposit box, the unconscious. In effect he is saying: ego can suppress all consciousness
of a patricidal and incestuous desire only if at one time ego truly experienced it.
Ergo
sum
.
The most remarkable aspect of this moment of unobstructed consciousness, which Freud
posits as the basis for man's psychic existence, is its sheer uselessness. Only by stripping
it away do we uncover Freud's essential point: the crucial and potentially catastrophic
nature of the first contacts between child and parent or, in other terms, between the
disciple's desire and the model's desire. This moment of consciousness
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not only offers us nothing of importance but also serves to obscure the mimetic process,
which in both form and context possesses many advantages over the Freudian
"complex."
Further discussion along these lines might distract us from our main subject of inquiry,
so I shall only say in passing that I believe that a radically mimetic conception of desire
offers a novel approach to psychiatric theory, one as far removed from the Freudian
unconscious as it is from any philosophy of consciousness camouflaged as an existential
psychoanalysis. Specifically, this new approach succeeds in circumventing the fetish of
"adjustment" without plunging into the inverse fetish of "perversion" that is typical of so much of modern theory. The individual who "adjusts" has managed to relegate the two
contradictory injunctions of the double bind -- to imitate and not to imitate -- to two
different domains of application. That is, he divides reality in such a way as to neutralize
the double bind. This is precisely the procedure of primitive cultures. At the origin of
any individual or collective "adjustment" lies concealed a certain arbitrary violence. The
well-adjusted person is thus one who conceals his violent impulses and condones the
collective's concealment of them. The "maladjusted" individual cannot tolerate this
concealment. "Mental illness"
5. a
nd rebellion, like the sacrificial crisis they resemble, commit the individual to falsehoods and to forms of violence that are certainly more
damaging
to him
than the disguised violence channeled through sacrificial rites but that
bring him closer to the heart of the enigma. Many psychic catastrophes misunderstood
by the psychoanalyst result from an inchoate, obstinate reaction against the violence and
falsehood found in any human society.
A psychoanalytic system that no longer oscillated between the rigid conformism of
social adjustment and the false scandal arising from the assumption of a mythical
patricide-incest drive in the child would not result in mere tepid idealism. Rather, such a
system would bring us face to face with some traditional concepts that are troubling, to
say the least. For example, in Greek tragedy, as in the Old Testament, the "good" son
cannot generally be distinguished from the "bad" son; the "good" son is Jacob rather than Esau, the prodigal son rather than the faithful son, Oedipus. . . . For the good son
imitates the father with such passion that father and son become each other's chief
stumbling block -- a situation the indifferent son more easily avoids.
It may appear, at this point, that all these concerns are foreign to the Freudian mode of
thought and that the mimetic double bind has nothing
____________________
5. Because the very notion of "mental illness" has been, up to a point, correctly
challenged in the writings of some contemporary physicians, I put the term in
quotation marks.
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to do with Freudian theory. "Act like your model / do not act like your model" -- the
contradictory double imperative we see as fundamental -may be thought to lead us far
from the realms of psychoanalysis.
In reality it does not, and this shows that Freud's work is too precious to be left to the
psychoanalysts. The mimetic approach preserves and enhances Freud's most acute
insights. In
The Ego and the Id
Freud explains that the relation between the ego and the
superego "is not exhausted by the precept: 'You ought to be like this (like your father).'
It also comprises the prohibition: 'You
may not be lik
e this (like your father) -- that is,
you may not do all that he does; some things are his prerogative.'"
6.
Who, after reading this passage, can deny Freud's proximity to my mimetic double bind?
Not only was he familiar with its operation, but the context in which he placed it can
help us realize its full potential. Freud's definition of the superego presupposes
something quite different from a mythical consciousness of rivalry; he seems to have
based it on the model's identification with the obstacle, an identification unperceived by
the disciple. The superego is in fact nothing more than a resumption of identification
with the father, now appearing chronologically
after
the Oedipus complex rather than
before
it. As we have seen, Freud did not actually suppress this previous identification,
perhaps because he balked at contradicting himself; but he cunningly relegated it to
secondary status by eliminating its primordial character. In any case, the identification
with the father now operates chiefly after the complex has taken hold; it has become the
superego.
If we reflect on the definition of the superego offered by Freud two facts become clear.
In the first place, the definition accords with the concept of the double bind. In the
second place, it fails to harmonize with Freud's picture of a "sublimated" Oedipus
complex, that is, a patricide-incest desire that has been transposed from the conscious to
the unconscious.
To appreciate in full the predicament brought about by the superego's contradictory
commands, issued as they are in the atmosphere of ignorance and uncertainty implied by
Freud's definition, we must try to imagine the son's initial act of imitation. It is
performed with fervor and devotion and rewarded by sudden, stupefying disgrace. The
positive injunction, "Be like your father," had seemed to cover the entire range of
paternal activities. Nothing in this first command anticipates, much less helps the son to
understand, the contradictory command that follows: "You may not be like your father."
And this command too seems to brook no exceptions.
All the son's efforts to differentiate between the commands and to
____________________
6. Freud,
The Ego and the Id
, 32.
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formulate distinctions end in failure, and his bewilderment gives rise to terror. He
wonders what he has done wrong and struggles to find separate areas of application for
the two commands. He finds it difficult to see where he is at fault -- certainly he has
broken no law yet known to him -- so he applies himself to discovering some new law
that will allow him to define his conduct as illegal.
What conclusions must be drawn from this definition of the superego? Why did Freud
again toy with the mimetic effects that he had rejected at the Oedipal stage? There
seems only one possible answer: he had no intention of renouncing the mimetic effects
resulting from identification. For he reverts to them when he takes up the concept of the
superego. Yet the definition of the superego follows almost immediately on the
definition of the Oedipus complex previously quoted, a definition purged of the mimetic
elements that had characterized Freud's earlier definition in
Group Psychology and the
Analysis of the Ego
.
It seems possible, then, to follow the evolution of Freud's thought from
Group
Psychology
in 1921 to
The Ego and the Id
in 1923. In the earlier work Freud believed it possible to reconcile the mimetic effect with his main thesis, the Oedipus complex; that
is why observations on the mimetic phenomenon are sprinkled throughout his work. But
in the very course of composition, it seems, Freud began to sense the incompatibility of
the two themes. And this incompatibility quickly becomes all too clear. The mimetic
process detaches desire from any predetermined object, whereas the Oedipus complex
fixes desire on the maternal object. The mimetic concept eliminates all conscious
knowledge of patricideincest, and even all desire for it as such; the Freudian proposition,
by contrast, is based entirely on a consciousness of this desire.
Freud evidently decided to permit himself the luxury of his Oedipus complex. When he
had to choose between the mimetic concept and a full-blown patricide-incest drive, he
opted firmly for the latter. This is not to say that he renounced exploring the promising
possibilities of mimesis; the admirable thing about Freud is his refusal ever to renounce
anything. In suppressing the effects of mimesis he was simply trying to prevent mimesis
from subverting his own cherished version of the Oedipus myth. He wanted to get hold
of the "Oedipus complex" once and for all so as to be free to return to the mimesis
question. Once he had the complex behind him, he could take mimesis up where he had
left it before the burgeoning of the idea of the complex.
In short, Freud attempted initially to develop the Oedipus complex on the basis of a
desire that is both object-oriented (cathectic) and yet originates in mimesis -- whence
comes the strange duality of the identification with the father and the libidinous
attraction for the mother in the first, and even the second, version of the complex. The
failure of this attempt at compromise compelled Freud to base his complex on
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a purely cathectic desire and to reserve the mimetic effect for another psychic structure,
the superego.
The duality of Freud's position stems from his effort to separate two poles of his
thinking on desire: cathectic and Oedipal at one extreme, mimetic at the other. But any
attempt to sever the link between the two will end in failure, as did the attempt at
synthesis that preceded it.
It is hopeless to attempt to isolate the three elements of mimetic desire: identification,
choice of object, and rivalry. That Freud's thought was never free of the influence of
mimetic preoccupations can be proved by the irresistible conjunction of these three
elements; whenever any one of them appears, the other two are sure to follow. It was
only with the greatest effort and at the expense of much of his credibility that Freud
managed to rid his Oedipus complex of all traces of mimesis. Conversely, in the case of
the superego, where in principle nothing interferes with the son's paternal identification,
we witness once again an upsurge of rivalry for the mother object. When the superego
proclaims, "You may not be like this (your father) . . . some things are his prerogative,"
Freud is clearly referring to the mother. That is why he adds: "This double aspect of the
ego ideal derives from the fact that the ego ideal had the task of repressing the Oedipus
complex; indeed it is to that revolutionary event that it owes its existence."
7.
This superego, simultaneously repressing and repressed, which exists only thanks to
"that revolutionary event," poses a formidable problem. It knows too much, even in a
negative sense. The truth is that the reactivating of the father-identification, which gives
the superego its meaning, automatically reactivates the Oedipal triangle. As I have
remarked, Freud cannot evoke one of the three elements of the mimetic configuration
without the other two's putting in an appearance. The reappearance of the Oedipal
triangle was not in his program. The Oedipus complex, the capital that served to launch
the entire psychoanalytic enterprise, is supposed to be firmly locked away in the
unconscious, deposited deep in the vaults of the psyche.