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Why the Family Is Beautiful (Lacan against Badiou)Author(s): Eleanor KaufmanReviewed work(s):Source: Diacritics, Vol. 32, No. 3/4, Ethics (Autumn - Winter, 2002), pp. 135-151Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1566448 .

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W H Y T H E FAMILY I S

BEAUTIFUL (LACAN AGAINST

BADIOU)

ELEANORKAUFMAN

The theoryof ethics that can be distilled from the work of JacquesLacanandAlainBadiou bears no resemblance to many commonly received notions of the ethical,

especially any that would link ethics to a system of morality.In fact, ethics is not

necessarilyhe central oncept ntheirwork,eveninLacan'sTheEthicsofPsychoanalysisor Badiou's recent Ethics: An Essay on the Understandingof Evil. If anything, it is

definedvicariouslyandinrelation o othermore centralconcepts,such as theworkingsof desire for Lacan and the fidelity to an event-or truth-process-for Badiou.

Nonetheless,an examination f thenetworkof conceptsheldtogetherunder heumbrella

of theethicalallows for a sharpdistinctionbetween the work of LacanandBadiou,one

that Badiou-himselfavowedly

indebtedto Lacan-is hesitantto make. Where Lacan

elevates the beautiful over the good in his readingof Sophocles's Antigone, Badiou

elevates thetruth-process ver the evil betrayalof suchanevent,drawingon examples

ranging romNationalSocialismtothelove relationbetween wopeople.A truth-processis a situation-specificadherence,or fidelity,to the revolutionarypotentialof an event

thatmaytakeplace in one of thefourrealmsof politics,art,science,and love. PerhapsBadiou's best exampleof a truth-process-what I will also refer to as fidelity to an

event-is one not describedin the text under considerationhere: the apostle Paul's

proclamationf and ierce oyalty o the eventof Christ's esurrection.t is in theparticularformin which the ethicalfidelityto a truth-processmaybe hard odistinguish rom evil

thatI will take issue with Badiou, for bothhis politicalexamplesand his evocation oflove as one of four conduits to a truth-processreflect a difficult inflexibility in his

extraordinarilyucidandprovocative ystem.Lacan,ontheotherhand,usesAntigone's

strange amilyvalues to suggesta moreflexible modelof ethics,one thatis focusedon

the encounterwith the inhumanand the fragileboundarybetween life anddeath.

Lacan'smost sustaineddiscussion of ethics occursin his seminalSeminarSeven

from1959-60, entitledTheEthicsofPsychoanalysis.'Notonlydoes this seminar egistera gradualshift from an earlieremphasison desire to a later focus on the real and the

drive,but t is also a crucialarticulationf whatmightseem forsome to be anoxymoronic

conjunction-psychoanalysis andethics. Such a conjunction,as opposedto a Sartreanor Levinasian model that would situate ethics in relation to the Other,2 akes as its

Withwarm thanks or their assistance to Ben Bateman,KateBloodgood, GordonBraden,Rita

Felski,MarkSanders,and thegraduatestudents nmyspring2003 "PsychoanalysisandEthics"

and spring2004 "Politicsand Theology"seminarsat the Universityof Virginia.1. See especially "TheFunctionof the Good"218-30 and "TheFunctionof theBeautiful"

231-40.

2. See Sartre,Being and Nothingness,esp. the section "TheLook" 340-400; and all ofEmmanuelLevinas'swork,esp. TotalityandInfinity.Whilesome wouldsituate Derrida in the

diacritics / fall-winter 2002 diacritics 2.3-4: 135-51 135



touchstoneFreud'sstinging critique n Civilizationand Its Discontentsof the biblical

injunction to love the neighbor as oneself. Here it is not merely a question of

understanding hytheneighbormaybeequallyanobjectof hatred,butof understandinghowcontradictoryentimentsarealso to be foundatthe heartof theself, and hencewhya viablesystemof ethicsmust take this intoconsideration.3n otherwords,ethicsis not

to be thoughtprimarilyas a relation to the otherso muchas a nonrelation o the self.4

Thus,when Lacanopposesthegood to thebeautiful, t is preciselythe relationalaspectof the good thathe denigrates.

Lacan inksthegood to thedialecticandto thepowerto depriveothers,situating t

squarely ntherealmof morality.Thebeautiful,bycontrast,marksa spaceof nonrelation

whereit is not so much a matterof two distinctselves but ratherof a single self whose

desireis not its own. InSeminarSix from thepreviousyear,LacananalyzesHamletand

suggests thatthe reason Hamlet does not kill Claudiusis thathe is traversedby his

mother'sdesire.He emphasizesthatHamlet'sdesire is "thedesire not for his mother,

butof his mother."5etweenSeminarsSix andSeven,Lacanshifts his focus from desireto ethics,fromHamlet oAntigone,butretainsa centralconnection.Whethert is termed

desire or ethics, at stake is the humancoming up against the limit of the human.In

SeminarSeven,Lacanwill situate hisconfrontationwithaninhuman imitin therealm

of the beautifulas opposed to the good, andthe ethical as opposed to the moral.By

situatingAntigoneas a more radicalversionof Hamlet'sincorporation f his mother's

desire,Lacan outlinesa theoryof ethics thatis based on strangekinship. By contrast,

Badiou invokes the declarationof love between two people as a model of the ethical

relation.While both thinkersespouse notions of ethics thatare far afield from moral

theoriesbasedon a notionofresponsibility

o theother,

Badiou elaboratesa four-tiered

system with romantic love as one of the hinge points, whereas Lacan champions

perversely nhuman amily values in orderto presentethics as the encounterwith the

unsurpassableimit.

Levinasiancampwithregard o the ethical relationto theOtherI think his overlooksDerrida s

foundational critiqueof Levinas in "Violenceand Metaphysics:An Essay on the ThoughtofEmmanuelLevinas."

3. See Freud,Civilizationand Its Discontents62-67; In the ethicsseminar,Lacanprefaceshis commentaryon thispassage in Freud with a referenceto the apostle Paul: "One must take

one's timeto see thatFreud s tellingus the same thingas SaintPaul,namely,that whatgovernsus on thepath of ourpleasure is no SovereignGood,and that

moreover,beyonda certainlimit,

we are in a thoroughlyenigmaticposition relativeto that which lies withindas Ding, because

there is no ethical rule whichacts as a mediator betweenour pleasure and its real rule.And

behind Saint Paul, you find the teaching of Christ..." Lacan goes on to comment on the

commandmento love theneighbor,concludingwith a characteristically erverse if notSadistic

imperative o thelisteners whomhe so oftenberates: "Try o readthewordsof the manwho, it is

claimed,neverlaughed; readthem or whattheyare. Fromtime to time,you will be struckbya

form of humorthatsurpassesall others"[95-96]. If Lacanplaces Paul in line withFreud and

Sade, thenBadioumightbe moreakinto theman who neverlaughed.Lacan'sdiscussionof the

neighbor is also in directdialogue with Pierre Klossowski'sSade, My Neighbor,the bookthat

almost singlehandedlyusheredin the revivalof Sade in twentieth-century renchthought.See

also Reinhard,"KantwithSade,Lacanwith Levinas"and "Freud,MyNeighbor"4. Thisis a point made in stunningashion in Eric L. Santner'sOn the Psychotheologyof

EverydayLife: Reflectionson FreudandRosenzweig.5. JacquesLacan,SeminarSix,Le d6siret ses interpretations,npublishedmanuscript,rom

thesession, "Disir du ne'vrose." xcerptsrom his lengthydiscussionof Hamlet in SeminarSix

have beenpublishedin Englishas "Desire and the Interpretation f Desire in Hamlet." n his

helpful gloss on Lacan's reading of Hamlet, Jean-Michel Rabate characterizes Hamlet as

"overwhelmed y his mother's ouissance"[64]. See also Rabate'sdiscussionofAntigone[69-

84].

136



Nowhere is the problemof the family betterdramatized n the literary-philosophicalrealmthan n thestaggeringcorpusof commentariesuponandrewritingsof Sophocles's

Antigone.Withoutdoingjustice to thewealthof critical iteraturedevotedto thistext, I

wish simply to highlightthe extremerangeof positions thathave been takenup with

respect to the role of the family in this play. In ThePhenomenologyof Spirit, Hegel

famouslyargues hatAntigonerepresentshedivinelaw while herantagonist,heruncle

Creon,represents he state.Indefiantly nsistingonburyingher brotherPolynices,who

has waged war against the city of Thebes andbeen condemnedby Creon to remain

unburiedoutside the walls of the city,Antigone insists on obeying the divine laws of

burialrather hanthe dictatesof the state,and for this facespunishmentby death or her

unswerving loyalty to her brother.Accordingto Hegel, Creon defends the masculine

virtues of the state andAntigonethe femininesphereof religion,thehousehold,andthe

family.Hegel'sanalysis, although t situatesAntigone'sbrother-loyaltys anethicalact

becauseit is untaintedby desire,simultaneouslyopens upanarrayof readings hat end

to pathologizeAntigoneandaboveall herfamilysituation.6JeanAnouilh'sAntigone,writtenduring heoccupationof Paris nWorldWarTwo,

goes to extremesto presentAntigoneas an inflexible andobstinatechild to Creon the

sage and pragmaticruler-Lacan denounces this play as "[Anouilh's] little fascist

Antigone" 250]andcomments hat"onewould haveto haveacharacter hatwasdeeplyout of touch with the crueltiesof our time to attack the subject,if I may say so, by

focusing on the tyrant" 240].Yet even if theydo not go as far as Anouilh in vilifying

Antigone,manyattemptshavebeen madetonormalizeorrationalizeAntigone'sposition.In "Antigoneand the Feminist Critic,"Page du Bois criticizes feminist attemptsto

recuperateAntigoneas

"misread[ing]he extenttowhichshe is bound

upinthe

pollutionof herfamily"[duBois 376]. Here,Antigone'sfailure, ncludingher diseasedlanguage(what du Bois, following Jakobson, diagnoses as an aphasic inability to employ

metaphor),s areflectionof thepathological amilyto which she hasbeen condemned.

In appealingat anotherpoint to the "normal equenceof narrative, amilial,historical

order," uBois impliesthata more normal amilymodelmightindeed be thecorrective

forAntigone [378]. In herconsiderablymoresympathetic eadingof Antigone,Helene

P. Foley contextualizesAntigone's perseverance n buryingherbrotherat all costs by

noting that in certainMediterraneanocieties it was acceptedfor a woman to revengethe death of a blood relation f therewereno survivingmale familymembers,which is

indeedthe case withAntigone [Foley55-57]. In otherwords,Antigone may be actingmore"rationally"han it wouldappear,according o a historicallyspecificmoralcode.

While differing considerably n theirtone andimport,these writingsreflect a marked

tendency opositionAntigonewithinacertainparameter f normal, easonable-indeed

human-family behavior.Suchreadingshighlight heextremityof Lacan'sexplicitmove

to champion he inhumanaspectof Antigone,and moreover o regard his as of a piecewith,rather han anexceptionto, a certain ogic of the family.

Though critical of both Hegel and Lacan for dissociating kinship,in the case of

Hegel, and the symbolic,in thecase of Lacan,too strictlyfrom therealmof the social,

Judith Butler'sredemptivereadingof Antigone as a model for rethinkingnotionsofkinshipas well as the humanis, at least on these counts,closer to Lacan thanalmost

anythingelse is. Butler'sreadingreinforcesLacan'sglorificationof Antigone while

questioningLacan'smethodand ts implications or atheoryof kinship.AlthoughButler

expresslyuses the term"kinship"with itsresonances romLevi-Straussandstructuralist

anthropology,noting earlyon thatkinship s notsynonymouswiththefamily,she never

expresslydelineates how the two aredifferent[Butler5]. Insteadshe uses Antigoneto

6. Fora helpfuldiscussionof Hegel's Sittlichkeitas it relates to Antigone,see Gerhard.

diacritics / fall-winter 2002 137



questionthe norms(suchas the incest taboo)uponwhichkinshiprelationsareusuallybased,and fromthis impliesthatthefamilybe viewed as less intrinsically ootedin the

unit of theheterosexualcouple, thoughwithoutusingthese specific terms[67]. Insofar

askinship s linked o theLacanian egisterof thesymbolic,and hesymbolic s somethingthat n Butler'sreadingof Lacanremains mpossible,thenLacan'stheoryof thefamily

is foundtobe similarly acking.Yet what seemslackingfromButler'saccount s Lacan's

dynamic model of the symbolic and the real, the real being that unlocalizable and

unarticulable notthatboth reinforcesanddisrupts hesymbolic.Withoutexpandingon

Lacan's heoryof the threeregisters thesymbolic,theimaginary,andthereal),I would

simply suggestthatButler'scriticismsof Lacanmightbe revisedbyreinsertinghe real

in itsconjunctionwith thesymbolicasa dynamicrelation hatparallels hatbetweenthe

familyandkinship.In otherwords,thedisjunctionorimpossibilitythata notionof the

family ntroducesntothestructuref kinship s notunlike hedisruptionhat he Lacanian

realbringsto the symbolic.7

WhereButlerand Lacanconvergemoreharmoniously s in theway theybothviewAntigone as posing a radicalcritiqueof the categoryof the human. Butlerwrites, "If

[Antigone]is human, hen the humanhas entered nto catachresis:we no longerknow

its properusage. ... If kinshipis the preconditionof the human,thenAntigone is the

occasion for a new field of the human,achievedthroughpoliticalcatachresis, he one

thathappenswhen the less thanhumanspeaksas human,whengender s displaced,and

kinshipfounderson his own foundinglaws"[Antigone'sClaim82]. In suggestingthat

restructuringinshipallowsfora rethinkingof the limitsof thehuman,Butlergesturesto a paradoxical onjunctionof thefamilyand theinhuman, houghthese are termsthat

shedoes not furtherdevelop.Itfollows from this thatthedisruptionposedto kinshipbya certainnotionof familyis notunlike the disruptivespaceof the realin theregisterof

the symbolic,or the inhuman n the realmof thehuman.Leavingasidethe real and the

symbolic, it seems that both Lacan and Butler use Antigone as a means to suggest a

connectionbetweenthe familyand the inhuman.

Lacan'sreadingofAntigonedevelops hisconjunction f thefamilyandthe inhuman

furtherand more explicitly,andprovocatively inks it to the realmof ethics. This is

developedthrougha considerationof thedifferencebetween thegoodand thebeautiful,which I will examine in some detail. As with manyof the termsLacanemploys, the

good is nowhereexplicitlydefined butinstead ts significanceemerges gradually, f not

belatedly, n the courseof his seminar(s).Nonetheless,he does providea particularlyconcise formulationn The Ethicsof Psychoanalysisat the end of his session on "The

Functionof the Good":

Thedomainof the good is the birthofpower ... It was Freud,not me, who

took upon himself the task of unmaskingwhat this has effectively meant

historically.Toexercise controlover one'sgoods, as everyoneknows,entails a

certaindisorder;hat reveals its truenature, .e., to exercise controlover one's

goods is to have therightto depriveothersof them. .. For this unction of the

good engenders,of course,a dialectic.I mean that thepowertodepriveothersis a verysolid link rom which will emergetheotheras such. [229]

7. WhileButlerpoints out how Lacanworksagainst the imaginary 49], she nowhere inks

this to an opposition of the imaginary o thejunctureof thesymbolic-real.Fora more extended

critiqueofButler's inadequate heorizationof the Lacanianregisters, ee Dean, esp.205-14, and

Zizek, "Class Struggleor Postmodernism?Yes,Please!" For an extendedreadingof Butler's

Antigone'sClaim and its relation to Lacanianethics,see Sjiholm 115-25. Sjiholm's bookwas

publishedafterthedraftingof thisessayand has manysignificantpointsof intersection see esp.theanalyses of beauty97, 101, 141-45].

138



Sucha definition-and this anticipateswhat Lacanwill do withethics-clearly flies in

theface of a whole traditionof moralthoughtthatgives the notion of the good a more

positivevalence.What t affirms,however, s thewayin which thegoodis fundamentally

relational,even dialectical,presupposingand in fact determininga relation o a human

other.While Lacanemphasizesthe antagonisticrelationwith the other,the morebasic

point is that the good, and hence the very model of one human in relation to another,falls short of the ethical.

This interrogation f the human s elaboratedmoreclearlyin a second definitionof

the good thatfollows in the next session of Lacan'sseminaron ethics:

Last time we definedthe good in symboliccreation as the initiumthat is the

point of departureof the humansubject's destinyin his comingto terms with

thesignifier The true natureof thegood, itsprofoundduplicity,has to do with

the act that it isn'tpurelyandsimplya naturalgood, the responseto a need,

butpossible power,thepower to satisfy.As a result,the whole relationof mantothe realof goods isorganizedrelative o thepower of theother;heimaginary

other,to deprivehimof it. [234]

Here,the good-not coincidentallyconflatedwith the sphereof goods-is notonly an

agonisticmedium,but it in fact helps shapeand create the very conceptof the other as

anotherpersonwho is in a relationof powerto me. This linkto therealm of the other s

certainlya celebrated enetof Lacanianpsychoanalysis,but it is importanto emphasizethat t is not thesame "other" hat s generally nquestion.Theotherassociatedwith the

domain of thegood

is aclearly

defined humanother in anexplicit

relationofpower

to

me, whereas Lacan'smore standard ormulation orthe Other s another thatI haveso

thoroughly ncorporatedhat I am unableto distinguish t frommy sense of self. Inthis

regard,the good mightbe said to be a low-level or garden-varietyorm of the other,while the second and more dizzying notion of the Other has much more in common

with Lacan's notionof the beautiful.

The beautifuls definedmostsuccinctlybyLacanas"deriv[ing]rom herelationshipof the hero to the limit, which is defined on this occasion by a certainAte"[286]. The

notionof at&,which is sometimesrenderedasruin,disaster,or,as Lacanglosses it, "the

limit thathuman life can only briefly cross" [262-63], would seem to have more in

common with the sublime as it has been outlined in Burke and Kant than with thebeautiful.Yet,as with the notionof the good-and in what we shall see withrespectto

ethics-Lacan turnsanystandardmeaningof the termon its head. ForLacan,beautyis

associatedwithviolence, blindness,transgression, ndespeciallydeath.He linksit, via

Antigone,to at? and also to theFreudiandeath drive:

The violent illumination,the glow of beauty,coincides with the momentof

transgressionor of realizationof Antigone's Ate, which is the characteristic

thatI havechiefly nsistedon and which ntroduced s to theexemplaryunction

ofAntigone'sproblem nallowingus to determine he unctionofcertaineffects.. Thebeauty effect is a blindnesseffect. Somethingelse is going on on the

otherside thatcannotbeobserved. neffect,Antigoneherselfhas beendeclaring

from the beginning: "Iam dead and I desire death." WhenAntigone depicts

herselfas Niobe becomingpetrified,what is she identifyingherselfwith, if it

isn't thatinanimateconditionin which Freudtaughtus to recognizethe ormin which the death instinctis manifested?An illustrationof the death instinct

is what wefind here. [281]




It should be noted that this "violent llumination" omingfromAntigoneis attributable

to Lacan's poken extratherhan oSophocles'swrittenone. WhileLacan'snterpretationof the text of theplay maybequestionable, f significance s thelinkheoutlinesbetween

the beautifuland the deathdrive.As shepersists n herdefiantdrivetoburyherbrother,

Antigone's disavowal of her life, of her futurerole as wife and mother,of her very

embodiment,ndicatessomethingbeyondtherelationship othe humanother hatLacanidentifiesas boundupwith a notionof thegood. Antigone'sinanimatequality,her drive

to deathorat&,putsher in the realm of thebeautiful,somethingLacanclearlyvalorizes

over the relationaldomain of the good.8If the domain of the good is the spaceof relation to the other,and a moretypical

Lacaniannotion of the otherentails its incorporationntotheself, thenAntigoneis even

moreextreme,in that herdeath drive is so pureas to standapart rom the realm of the

other,even the other that is incorporatednto the self. In thisregard, he heroine of the

ethics seminar clipsesthe heroof theseminar n desire.What s articulatedainstakingly

throughout hedesire seminar s theway in which somethingphantasmatic ppearsoutof a spacethatis neitherentirelyconsciousnorunconscious. It appears rommaterial

that s presentyet notregisteredas such,ofteninvolvinga relationshipo orprescienceof death thatis implicitly acknowledgedbut not explicitly articulated,known yet not

recognized.9Whereasdeathhas a spectralpresence n Hamlet, t is far more in the openinAntigone,and far less linked to the desire of the other:

There s nothingDionysiacaboutthe act and the countenanceofAntigone.Yet

she pushes to the limit the realizationof somethingthatmightbe called the

pureand

simpledesire

ofdeath as such. She incarnates that desire. Think

about it. Whathappensto her desire? Shouldn't t be the desire of the Other

andbe linked to the desireof the mother?The textalludes to thefact that the

desireof the mother s theoriginof everything.Thedesireof the mother s the

foundingdesireof the wholestructure, he one thatbrought nto theworld the

uniqueoffspringthat are Eteocles, Polynices, Antigoneand Ismene;but it is

also a criminaldesire. Thusat theorigin of tragedyandof humanismwefindonce againan impassethatis the same as Hamlet's,exceptstrangelyenoughit

is even more radical. [282-83]

This passageillustratesa certainmovementfrom SeminarSix to SeminarSeven, fromHamlet to Antigone,from desire to ethics. If Hamlet'sdesire is both moreshifty and

more filial, Antigone's desire-and nondesire-is more steadfast and more perverse.

Similarly,whereas desire is the explicit topic of SeminarSix, it is always elliptical,

resistingdefinitionand ocalization.Itis notuntilSeminarSeven, where ethics takes on

the ellipticalrole of desire,that the mostprecisedefinition of desire is formulated,and

in conjunctionwith a similarconcludingrefinementof the definition of ethics.At the

end of the seminar,much in the fashionof his earlierdiscussions of the good and the

beautiful,Lacanproposesanunusualdefinition of ethics:"And t is because we know

better hanthose who went beforehow to recognizethe natureof desire,whichis at the

8. Though rawing n a differentefinitionf thegood romLacan's,MarthaNussbaumneverthelessmakesa characterizationhat bothaffirmsandextendsLacan'sanalysis, drawinga

parallelbetweenAntigoneandCreonas "twooddlyinhumanbeings"[65]. Indeed,it seems that

Lacan'semphasisonAntigone'sinhumanattributescouldeasilybe extended o Creon.

9. This is comparableto whatSlavojZizek,expoundingon DonaldRumsfeld'sexample of"knownknowns, "knownunknowns,"nd "unknown nknowns,"uts orwardas the "unknown

known."eeOrganswithoutBodies:OnDeleuze ndConsequences5;andIraq:TheBorrowedKettle9.

140



heartof thisexperience, hatareconsideration f ethicsis possible, thata formof ethical

judgmentis possible, of a kind thatgives this questionthe force of a LastJudgment:Have you actedin conformitywiththe desire that s in you? ... Opposedto thispole of

desire is traditional thics"[314].Andjust after,he reformulates t thus:"Iproposethen

that,froman analyticalpoint of view, the only thing of which one can be guilty is of

having given groundrelativeto one's desire. Whether t is admissibleor not in a givenethics,thatproposition xpressesquitewell something hatwe observe n ourexperience"

[319]. Ethics, then,meansobeyinga law of formrather han one of content.It does not

specifyorprohibit oncreteacts other hanone-acting inconformitywith one'sdesire,

or,alternatively, otgiving wayonthatdesire.10 lthoughwhatthatdesiremaybe is not

always self-evident,the importanthing is not to give up on the quest to encounter t.

Whatis interesting n this regard s thatAntigone,while on the one handepitomizingthisinjunctionwith her deathdrive,orat&,s on the otherhandtraversedby adesire that

is also illegible for being strangelyabsent.As Lacanexpressesit in the passage cited

above, "whathappens o herdesire?"Whatcomplicatesdesire andits relationto ethics is none other than the beautiful.

Although what Lacancalls Antigone's beauty is to a certaindegree the mark of her

uncompromising esire, t alsomarks heabsenceof desirewhereonewould mostexpectto find it. More specifically,and in the passage that is perhapsmost cited and most

confounding nAntigone(leadingtounlikelyspeculations hat t was abelated nsertion

in theoriginaltext),Antigoneattemptsat theend of theplayto explainherself,avowingthat she wouldonly do thesedeeds for abrotherand notfor a husbandora child.Yet in

the courseof this explanationherdesire remainsoddly indiscernible:

[F]or never,had childrenofwhom wasthemotherorhadmyhusband erishedand beenmouldering here,wouldI havetakenon myselfthistask,indefiance

of the citizens.In virtueof what law do I say this?If myhusbandhaddied, I

couldhaveanother,anda childbyanotherman,ifI had lost the irst, butwith

my mother andfather in Hades below, I could never have another brother

10. See Lacan'spublishedessayon KantandSade, "Kantwith Sade."Fora lucid overview

of ethics in Kant, Sade, and to a lesser extentLacan, see Martyn.Following Lacan, Martyn

connectsKantwithSade onthegrounds hatbothshareaformalist approach o ethics that nvolvesfollowing a formal maxim,such as the categorical imperative,ratherthan a specific code ofconduct.Martyn urther links this with ailure: "What s ethical,for Kant asfor Sade, appearsultimatelyas a specifickindof failure,the ailure that ensues whentheattempt o abstract romall contentandto articulatea purely ormal totalityispursuedto a pointof exhaustion hatis at

once the consequenceand the collapse of form" [21]. Martynconcludes with the resoundingdeclaration that or Lacanpsychoanalysis itself is tantamount o ethics:

Toalarge egree,whatwe earn romTheEthics fPsychoanalysiss thatpsychoanalysisisethics.ForwhatLacan escribes s the dealof ethics loselyresembles hathehadearlier escribedstheendof analysis:n bothcases,desire s priedoose or iberated

from heshackles fanegofixated ythe maginary... As inanalysis,thics nvolves

cutting ne'segoloose fromallthoseobjectshesubject magineso bepleasurable,useful,orbeneficial.These"good" bjectsareallessentiallymirrorsf thesubject:theyhavea "narcissisticoundation"ndare"more rless hisimage,hisreflection."

[181-82]

See also AlenkaZupanlic's moreLacanian-inflecteddiscussionof these same problematicsin

Ethicsof the Real:Kant,Lacan,esp. the last chapter "Thus" 249-59]. For a sustainedreadingof Lacan'sconceptof desire as it is articulatedthrough hejuxtapositionof Kant andSade, seeBaas.




Such was the law for whose sake I did you special honour but to Creon I

seemed to do wrong and to show shocking recklessness, 0 my own brother

And now he leads me thus by the hands, without marriage, without bridal,

having no share in wedlock or in the rearing of children, but thus deserted by

myfriends I come living, poor creature, to the caverns of the dead. [lines 900-

20]

In its privilegingof the role of the sister overthatof the wife or themother,Antigone's

speechreflects a hierarchyof familyvalues thatby manystandardswouldbe strikinglyaberrantf notperverse.Thebrother,becauseirreplaceable,s valued morehighlythan

the husbandorchildren,who areultimately ubstitutable.Antigone's amilialattachment

to her sibling is exalted over any attachmentsbrought under the auspices of an

extrafamilialove relation,andthis is underscoredby Antigone'sdirect addressto the

deadbrother.Antigone's eeming ndifferenceo her oyalfianceHaemononlyreinforces

the exclusive focus on the brother.)Yet the final lines of this passage lament theimpossibilityof the very relationsof wife and motherthat areplacedas secondaryto

that of the sister.And this dualappealto both the function of the sister and that of the

wife/motherunderscores he implacablequestionof whatexactlyis Antigone'sdesire,on the one hand so readableandon the otherso opaque.1"

Lacansignalsthe beautifulas boththe markerof desire'sunreadablity ndas that

whichabatesdesire:

11.It is interestingonotea certainaffinitybetweenLacan'sandHegel'sanalysesofAntigoneprecisely in their respective conjunctionsof desire, ethics, andfamily relation.Althoughthe

possibility of a womanenjoyingan ethical relationis ambiguousat bestfor Hegel, the sister as

exemplifiedbyAntigone is considerablybetterpositioned than the wife. In the section of The

Phenomenologyof Spiriton "TheEthical Order,"Hegel distinguishesthe wifefrom the sister

andimpliesthatthesisterlyrelation,as opposedto thespousalone, is morepure preciselyin that

it is devoidof desire:

Sincethen, n thisrelationshipf the wifetheres an admixturef particularity,erethical ife is notpure;butin so far as it is ethical, heparticularitys a matter f

indifference,nd hewife is without hemoment f knowing erself s thisparticularself in theotherpartner.hebrother, owever,s for the sisterapassive, imilar eingin general;herecognitionf herself n himis pureandunmixedwithanynaturaldesire.n hisrelationship,herefore,he ndifferencef theparticularity,nd heethical

contingency f the latter,are notpresent;butthe momentof the individual elf,

recognizingndbeingrecognized,anhereasserttsright,because t is linked o the

equilibriumf thebloodand s a relation evoidof desire.The oss of the brothersthereforerreparableo the sisterandherduty owards im s thehighest.275]

Thewife is tainted withparticularity,hence notpure, whereas the relationof sister to brother

retainsthispurity.Yet hissister-brother elation s also linked o theindividualas opposedto the

collective,andthis is augmentedbythe sister's lackofdesire or the brotherAlthoughLacan uses

Antigoneto illustrate nhumandesire,herdeathdrive as it were,it seemsthatforboth Lacan and

Hegel,Antigonerepresents space wheredesire encounters ts limit.Moreoveras Hegelindicates

in the irst sentenceof thesectionimmediatelyollowing, "thisrelationships at the same time the

limitat which theself-contained ife of theFamilybreaksupandgoes beyonditself" Here, it is

thesibling relation thatexposesthe limitsof the amily structure, hat best accesses the realmofthebeyond-the realmof thebeautiful-to whichthe amily is singularlyconducive.Formoreon

Hegel,the amily,and thelimit constitutedbythe brother-sister elation nAntigone,see Derrida,

Glas, esp. 145-67; Jacobs, "DustingAntigone";and Geller "Hegel's Self-ConsciousWoman."

For more on Hegel and desire and its legacy in Frenchthought,see Butler Subjectsof Desire.

142



There s a certainrelationshipbetweenbeautyand desire. Thisrelationships

strangeand ambiguous.On the one hand, it seems that the horizonof desire

maybe eliminatedrom the registerof thebeautiful.Yet,on the otherhand,it

has beenno less apparent .. that the beautifulhas the effect,I wouldsay, of

suspending, owering,disarmingdesire. Theappearanceof beauty ntimidates

andstopsdesire. .. Moreover, t seems that it is in the natureof thebeautifulto remain,as they say, insensitive to outrage,and that is by no means one ofthe least significantelementsof its structure. . . Thebeautiful n its strange

functionwithrelation o desiredoesn't takeus in,as opposedto the unctionofthegood. Itkeepsus awake andperhapshelpsusadjustto desireinsofaras it

is itself linkedto the structureof the lure. [237-39]12

Lacanrepeatedlycharacterizes he beautifulby the adjective "strange,"both in this

passageand nother ormulations.Thestrangewouldappear o be a functionof beauty's

indecipherability.Yet this very strangenessandopacityelevates the beautifulover thedeceptiverealmof thegood.Inthisrespect,beauty,as themarker fAntigone's"strange"

familyvalues,is bothmoreimpassableandmorestraightforwardhanthe good, for its

strangeness s immediately perceptiblewhereas the good is that which takes you in.

Beauty is closer all at once to death,evil, andultimatelyethics. In this sense, Lacan's

notion of ethics entailsa sortof grittyrealism(to be sure,not the way Lacanwouldputit)where one hasnochoice butto confront hosethingsthatareotherwise oo horrifyingorpainfulto address.It is this proximity o the extremethat for Lacan marks he spaceof theethical,aperhapsparadoxicalandcertainly iminalspacewherethelivingand the

humanconfronttheir limits.

Whatwill becomecrucial n linkingLacan o Badiou s theconnectionbetweenLacan's

notions of the "good"and the "beautiful"and Badiou's continualappeal to "truth."

Clearly, ruthandthegood arenotsynonymous erms,yet,as Lacanpointsout,if beauty

disrupts hegood, thenit also disrupts, n its proximity o radicaldestruction,hepurityof truth.After citing Sade's Juliette andproceedingfrom there to a discussion of the

deathdrive in Freud,Lacanconcludes his lectureon thedeathdrive with thefollowingremarks:

Thetrue barrier that holdsthesubjectbackin ront of theunspeakableield ofradical desire that is thefield of absolute destruction,of destructionbeyond

putrefaction, is properly speaking the aesthetic phenomenon where it is

identifiedwith the experience of beauty-beauty in all its shining radiance,

beautythat has beencalled thesplendorof truth. t is obviouslybecausetruthis notpretty o lookat thatbeauty s, ifnot itssplendor;henat least itsenvelope.

12. Fora furtherdevelopmentof the structureof the lureas it is played out in thefield ofvision, see Lacan's eleventhseminar The Four FundamentalConceptsof Psychoanalysis.Ellie

Ragland inksbeautyto thereal,topuredesire,and to theboundarybetween ifeand deathin the

following threeexquisiteormulations,allfrom "Lacans Theoryof Sublimation:A NewLook at

Sophocles'sAntigone.""Freuddid notunderstandwhatcausessuffering,Lacansays.InLacan s

teaching,the real returns rombehind, nsuffering,as terribleandbeautiful" 111]; "Antigonesa creatureof pure desire,Lacanmaintains. One might say thatpuredesire means the absolutelack or loss of thedialecticalpowerofdesire.As such,puredesire wouldopenonto thevoid,onto

death, onto beauty"[113]; "AgainstAristotle'sargumentthat beauty arises from an orderlyarrangementof theparts of a whole intoaformally beautifulwork,Lacan showsanother order:thatof objectswherenothing ess thanlifeor deathis at stake"[117].




In otherwords,I will explainnext time ourforwardmarch resumesthat

on the scale that separates us from the centralfield of desire, if the goodconstitutesthefirst stoppingplace, the beautiful orms the second and getscloser It stopsus, but it also points in the directionof the ield of destruction.

That n thissense, when one aimsfor the centerof moralexperience,the

beautiful s closer to evil than to thegood, shouldn't,I hope,surpriseyou verymuch.[216-17]

This explanationof the relationbetween the beautiful,the good, andtruthpoints upboth thedivergenceandthepointsof proximitybetween LacanandBadiou. On the one

hand, n itspositivelycodedvalence,theexperienceof beauty s akintoBadiou'snotion

of truth,andbeautyas the markerof the desirenotgiven up is parallel o what Badiou

will describeas fidelityto anevent.Inthisregard, ruth orBadiouis identifiedmorebyits form thanby its content-it is not so much a specific thingor occurrenceas it is a

declarationof adherenceto a person, thing, or occurrence.It is more a process or aprocedurehana thingin itself.Furthermore,henotion thatbeauty,ortruth orBadiou,

is closer to evil thanit is to some middlecategorysuch as the good for Lacan-or the

contemporarynotion of the multiculturalother for Badiou-highlights a certain

convergenceof theirrespectivelexicons. Indeed,such a convergence s what Badiou

tendsto emphasize,even formulatinghis conceptof fidelity to a truth-processn the

termsof Lacan'sethical maximof notgiving groundon one's desire:"do notgive upon

yourown seizureby a truth-process"Badiou,Ethics47].13

Badiou's work,especially his Ethics, containsmany expressionsof indebtedness

toward Lacan.Ofparticularpertinence

s theway

he situateshis notion of ethics as

followingLacan's n thatboth concern anethic of somethingelse:

Theonly genuineethics is of truths n theplural-or, moreprecisely,theonlyethics is of processes of truth,of the labour that brings some truths nto the

world. Ethics mustbe takenin the sense presumedby Lacan when,againstKant and the notion of a general morality, he discusses the ethics of

psychoanalysis.Ethics does not exist. There s only the ethic-of (ofpolitics, of

love, of science, of art). ... Thereis not, infact, one single Subject,butas

manysubjectsas there are truths,and as many subjectivetypesas there are

proceduresof truths.. . . As for me, I identify our fundamentalsubjective

"types":political, scientific,artistic,andamorous.[28]14

13. ElsewhereLacan would seemto disruptBadiou'scruciallinkingof truth o theevent.In

urginghis listeners to be wary of the chorus in Antigone,Lacan cautions againstjuxtaposingthese two terms: "Thesignifierintroduces wo ordersin the world,thatof truthand thatof the

event. But if one wantsto retain it at the level of man's relationsto the dimensionof truth,one

cannotalso at the sametime make tservetopunctuate heevent.In tragedy ngeneralthere s no

kindof true event. The heroand that whichis aroundhim are situatedwithrelationto thegoal ofdesire" [Ethics 265]. Badiou's

philosophydoes not account or the dialectic of desire when it

encounters the tragic or destructive, as it usually does. A certain transferential and

countertransferentialialectic is itselftakingplace betweenLacanand theaudience nhisseminar,andthisis often iguredinhispejorativecomments n the chorus nAntigone.Lacansubsequently

refersto the "docile chorus . . . , a collection of yes-men" [266], whichparallels the way he

frequentlyaddresses his audience.See esp. 251-54, where Lacan berateshis listeners or their

poor understanding f his lecturesand admonishesthem or not havingthe initiative to go out

and readAntigoneon theirown.Mythoughtson Lacan'ssadistic relationto his audience have

benefitedroman unpublished aper on this topic byDavid Sigler14.Inan interviewwith PeterHallward ncludedas anappendix oEthics,Badiou comments

on his debt to Lacanand on hisfrequentcharacterizationof Lacan as an "antiphilosopher":

144



To be sure,Lacanspeaks of an ethics of psychoanalysis,but nowhere does he outline

four fundamental ypes of truthprocedure he does employ four-part ategorizations,

thoughto verydifferentends).Andit seems a stretch o saythatethics does notexistfor

Lacan,eventhough t is a termthat s hard o pindown. I would counter hatethicsdoes

exist for Lacan, at the extremelimit foregroundedby beauty,at the limit of life and

death,of the humanandthe inhuman.Badiou'sproject s immenselydifferent romthatof Lacan,and that differenceresides,amongotherthings, in Lacan's insistenceon the

messinessof things,on ethics as thefunctionthat witnesses to extremestates,whereas

Badiouwould seek to delimitforms of experiencein a four-part tructure,n a perfect

system. Although such codification is admirablyrigorous,it does not allow for the

exceptionthatchangesthe ruleof thetruth-processnsteadof proving t,and tpresumesa subjectwho abidesby therules,who alwaysremainsfaithful.By contrast,what is at

stakeforLacan s the potential orabandoning he system,for confrontingone's desire

at its limit andtherebytransforming verything, ncludingthe system."1

Thoughit is uncharacteristicallynderstated,Slavoj Zizekmakes a similarclaimwith respect to Badiou and Lacan in his chapteron Badiou in The TicklishSubject,wherehehighlights hecentrality f thedeathdrive oLacan,especiallyas it is formulated

with respectto Antigone, and the way this is incompatiblewith Badiou's truth-event,

which, as Zizekand others have pointedout, adamantly ejects anythingrelatedto the

negative,finitude,the dialecticbetweenlife anddeath,or for thatmatter he Lacanian

real.16I quoteZizek at length:

[T]he whole of Lacan'seffortis preciselyfocused on those limit-experiencesin which thesubject inds himselfconfrontedwith the death drive at itspurest,

priorto its reversal ntosublimation. snot Lacan'sanalysisofAntigone ocusedon the momentwhen shefinds herselfin the state "inbetween he twodeaths,"

Anotherthing that grabbed my attention: Lacan declaredhimself to be an

"antiphilosopher."t is partly hanks o himthatI began o askmyself, n a fairlysystematic ay,whatmight edeclaredntiphilosophical,hatwas tthat haracterized

antiphilosophicalhought, hycertain inds fthoughtonstitutehemselvesshostilitytophilosophy.ntheend,my theorys thatphilosophyhould lwayshinkascloselyas possible o antiphilosophy.orallthesereasons, owe Lacana realdebt,despite

havinghad no relation o thequestion f analytic herapy s such.["PoliticsandPhilosophy:An InterviewwithAlain Badiou" 121-22]

Without ddressingBadiou's intricate notionof antiphilosophyand its relationto philosophy,I

think t mightbe assertedthat,to thecontrary,Lacanis indeeddoingphilosophy,butbecausehis

foundationaltext s Freud--andnotHegel, Husserl,orHeideggeras was the case with the French

philosophersof his generation-he doesphilosophyotherwise,andfor this is arguablythemost

original Frenchphilosopherof the twentiethcentury.What s most significantin this context,

however, s the way in which Badiou takes Lacan's declarationthathe is an antiphilosopher

absolutelyatface value. Thisdisplaysa marked ontrast o hisbreathtaking pproach oDeleuze,in whichBadiouopenlyaffirms hemajorfaultlines betweenhis thoughtand thatof Deleuze,but

in this ashion sheds newlightonDeleuze, especiallyDeleuze's relationto Platonism,univocity,and the virtual.It is interesting hat Badiou does not take a similarlyengaged yet critical stance

withrespect oLacan, or inmanyrespectsBadiou'sthought s moreproximate o thatofDeleuze.Forexample,heaffirms hat"Deleuze's hilosophy, ikemyown,moreover s resolutely lassical"

[seeBadiou,Deleuze:TheClamour f Being45].15. Fora brilliant discussionof thewaythat desire at itspurestconfrontsandgoes beyond

the very structureof desire, see Zupancic s reading of Claudelalongside Sophie's Choice in

"Ethicsand Tragedyn Psychoanalysis"in Ethicsof the Real 170-248.

16. See especially Copjec, ImagineThere's No Woman[29], for a discussionof Badiou's

critiqueoffinitude.




reducedto a living death, excluded rom the symbolic domain? Is this not

similarto the uncanny igure of Oedipusat Colonnuswhoafter ulfilling his

destiny, is also reduced to "less than nothing," to a formless stain, the

embodimentof some unspeakablehorror?All these and other igures (from

Shakespeare'sKingLear to Claudel'sSygnede Coufontaine)arefigures who

find themselves n this void, trespassingthelimitto "humanity" ndenteringthe domainwhichinancient Greekwas called ate, "inhumanmadness."Here,Badioupays thepricefor hisproto-Platonicadherence o Truth ndtheGood:

what remainsbeyondhis reach, in his violent (and, on its own level, quite

justified) polemics against the contemporaryobsession with depoliticized"radicalEvil"(theHolocaust, etc.) andhis insistence that thedifferentacets

of Evil are merelyso manyconsequencesof the betrayalof the Good (of the

Truth-Event),s this domain "beyondthe Good," in which a humanbeingencounters he death driveas the utmost imitof humanexperience,andpays

theprice by undergoinga radical "subjectivedestitution,"by being reducedto an excremental emainderLacan spoint is that this limit-experiences the

irreducible/constitutiveonditionof the (im)possibilityof the creative act of

embracinga Truth-Event:t opens up and sustains the spacefor the Truth-

Event,yet its excess always threatens o undermine t. [160-61]

WhatZizekmakesexplicitwithoutunderscorings how incompatiblea Lacaniananda

Badiouianethicsactuallyare,eventhoughthey might easily be collapsedintomuch the

samething,andthis by none otherthan Badiouhimself.As Zizekpointsout,Antigone

is emblematicof a whole set of literaryfigures, generally from tragedy,that Lacandrawsupon;andwhatunites hesefigures s thewayinwhichtheyencounterheinhuman,

the limit-experiencebeyondthe good. Badiou'sphilosophyleaves no room for such a

beyond, for this realm of the "constitutive"imit-experience s what "remainsbeyond

[Badiou's]reach"and leaves his truth-process, ccessiblethrough he four domainsof

politics,art,science,and ove, entirelyunequippedo deal withanything hat allsoutside

of its sphere.Itis thereforecuriousthatLacanians uch asZizek,Copjec,andZupancic(the lattertwo are cited in the footnotes)-all with nuancedanalyses of ethics andits

inextricableink to desire--drawso positivelyon Badiou'swork,not withoutseemingly

pointedcritiques,such as this oneby Zizekabove,yet theyneverpursue hesecritiquesin a sustained ashion.

WhereasZizek,Copjec,andZupancil

all considerthe questionof radicalEvil in

depth,Badioudismisses his termout of hand."7his is perhapsbestillustratednBadiou's

Ethicsby his continualappeal o NationalSocialismas an illustration f atruth-process

gone awry (a low-level evil, if you will) andhis concomitantdiatribe,mentionedby

Zizek,againstthose who would single out the Holocaustas a sortof pureradicalEvil.

Amongother hings,Badiou'sproblemwithradicalEvil is that tappeals o theHolocaust

as a type of limit, something,as we have seen, thatis not thinkablewithinhis system.

Referring o the Nazi genocide,Badiouwrites:

But then the wholepoint is to situate this singularity.Fundamentally, hose

who upholdthe ideologyof humanrightstry to situate it directlyin Evil, in

keepingwith theirobjectivesofpure opinion.Wehave seen that thisattemptat

thereligiousabsolutizationfEvil is incoherent.Moreover tisvery hreatening,like anythingthatputs thought up against an impassable "limit." ... The

defendersof ethicalideologyare so determinedo locate thesingularityof the

17. FormoreonradicalEvil,see RadicalEvil,ed.Copjec.

146



exterminationdirectly in Evil that they generally deny, categorically, that

Nazismwas a political sequence .... Nazipolitics was not a truth-process,but

it was only in so far as it could be representedas such that it "seized"the

Germansituation. [Ethics 64-66]

Nazism,like atruth-process,ried o seize uponanall-inclusiveuniversalism,yetclearlyat theexpenseof those "unfit"or a universal ruth.Thisexamplecertainlyunderscores

Badiou's assertion hat"Evilis theprocessof a simulacrumof truth" 77], andbeyondthat mpliesthatan evil such as NationalSocialismactuallycomes closertoa processof

truth hansomething ike the liberalprogramof tolerance o every sort of particularity

(the paradigmof the multiculturalother thatBadiou denounces).Although Badiou's

work makes a sustainedand rigorous argument or universalismover and against a

liberalparticularism,hefactthattheparticularityf multiculturalismalls so far afield

from a bona fide Badiouian ruth-processmakesone, even one sometimessympathetic

to the critiquesof multiculturalism,want to say, wait a second, maybe I'll take thephilosophically sloppy multiculturalism over the almost-but-not-quite-sufficientlyuniversal National Socialism after all. For what is so disturbinggiven the examplesBadiou employs is the fact that,by his own account,a truth-processs ultimatelyveryhardto define or even identify,and so presumablysuch a truth-process,often only

recognizableretrospectively,would bejust as likelyto turnout to be anexclusive rather

than an inclusive universalism,assumingone grantsthat the latter s even possible.

Oddlyenough, thoughBadioupositions thetruth-processorfidelityto anevent)in oppositionto the logic of radicalEvil, the sublime,and the Platonicsimulacrum,t

seems that this truth-process,n its resistance to definition andpotentialto strayinto

evil and falsity, is not that far removed from the very radical Evil Badiou attacks.'"

However, hefact that the formof fidelityto a truthmayresemblea universalismgone

awry(suchas NationalSocialism) s notin itself whereItakeprimaryssue withBadiou.

It is morenearlythat this similarityof formimplies that the actors who areseized bysuchatruth-processwould becapableof managing tproperly.Rather hanacknowledgethe sublime andterrifyingqualityof sucha situationandthus be potentiallypreparedo

register ts harmfulramifications,Badioucodes thetruth-process urelypositively,as if

to saythat n the handsof therightagentsthetruth-processwilljust turnout for thebest.

As a studentastutelyobserved nthe class in which we readBadiou'sEthics,"thisbook

is written or good people."'9The sameobjectionto Lacan'smaximnotto give groundon one's desire might certainly be made. The difference, however, is that Lacan

acknowledgesthat extremedesires,deathdrives,encounterswith the inhuman,and all

mannerof thingsBadiouwould want to discreditare situatedat the heartof thequestionof ethics. Is it not preferable o have a theoryof ethics thatanticipatesextremestates

rather hanone that holds to the best-case scenario wherehopefully they will not be

relevant?

18. Badiouhimselfmakes muchthesamepoint in Ethicswhen he writes:

For hewell-knownxistence f simulacras apowerfultimuluso thecrystallizationofcrises.Opinionellsme(and hereforetellmyself, orIamneveroutside pinions)thatmyfidelitymaywellbe terrorxerted gainstmyself,and hat he idelityowhichI am faithful ooksverymuch ike-too much ike-this or thatcertifiedEvil. It is

alwaysa possibility,incetheformal haracteristicsf thisEvil(as simulacrum)re

exactly those of a truth. . WhatI am then exposed to is the temptation o betraya

truth.79]

19. Mythanksto Alex Gilfor thisperceptivecommentandfor manyotherinsights.




While Badiou's most developed examplesof whata truth-processwould look like

are in the realm of politics (suchas FrenchMaoismor the events of May '68) or most

recently in the domain of religion (the apostle Paul's activist fidelity to Christ's

resurrection),20a less-developedandmore difficultexampleis to be foundin the realm

of the love relation.ThroughoutEthics,Badiouuses the exampleof two people fallingin love as one of the sites for the unfolding of a truth-process.Of his four generic

procedures(science, art, politics, love), Badiou dwells least on love, though in his

Manifestoor Philosophyhe does hailLacanas thegreatest heoristof love sincePlato,

notingthat Lacan is morecustomarilycreditedas a thinkerof desire or of the subject.While this seems a very aptobservation,Badiou focuses solely on Lacan'sdiscussion

of the nonrelationof the Two sexes, whose unionthrough ove is itself whatproducesthe notion of sexual differenceas something hatexceeds the law of theOne.As Badiou

translatest into his lexicon inflectedby settheory:"Ishallsayinmy language hat ove

bringsabout,as a nameless orgenericmultiplicity,a truthof the differenceof the sexes,

a truth learlysubtractedromknowledge, especiallyfrom theknowledgeof those wholove each other.Love is theproduction,withfidelityto theencounter-event, f the truth

of theTwo."2'ThoughBadiouis carefulto distinguish his love from romantic ove tout

court,what is striking s thatonly the love of the (presumablyheterosexual)couple is

paradigmatic f anything.22n otherwords,wherewoulda love orfidelitythat s outside

20. The main detailedexamplesthat Badiougives of truth-processes,or events,are in the

domainof politics:

I shallcall "truth"a truth)he realprocessof a fidelity o anevent: hatwhich his

fidelity roducesnthesituation.or xample,hepolitics ftheFrenchMaoistsetween1966and1976,which riedothink ndpractise fidelity o twoentangledvents: heCulturalRevolutionin China, andMay '68 in France .... Essentially,a truth s the

materialourse raced,within hesituation, ythe evental upplementation.t is thusan mmanentreak. Immanent"ecause truth roceedsn thesituation,ndnowhereelse-there is noheaven f truths. Break"ecausewhatenables hetruth-process-the event-meant nothingaccordingo the prevailing anguageand established

knowledgef thesituation... Wemight ay, hen,hat truth-processsheterogeneousto the institutednowledges f thesituation.Or-to use anexpressionf Lacan's-that tpunches "hole"ntheseknowledges.42-43]

See the appendix, "Politicsand Philosophy:An Interviewwith Alain Badiou,"where Badiou

commentson thedifficultyof labelingthe eventsof May '68an event,ultimately eferring o them

as an "obscure vent" 126]. As someonewhoremainsaithfulto the eventof Christ'sresurrection,

founding through his a universaltruth-processhat shuns theparticular the dialectic, and the

law, Saint Paul is the exemplaryigure for Badiou thatAntigoneis for Lacan,but more so [see

Badiou,SaintPaul].It is all the morestriking, hen,thatthistheological example alls somewhat

outsidethe ourgenericsofpolitics,love,art,and science thatare detailed n EthicsandthroughoutBadiou'swork.See esp. hisL'Utre t l'6v6nement.

21. Badiou,ManifestoforPhilosophy83, trans.modified.For a usefuldiscussionof love in

Badiou,see

Hallward,Badiou:A

Subjecto Truth185-91. For a

diametricallyoppositeapproachto an ethics of sexual difference(as Hallwardpoints out), see Irigaray,An Ethics of Sexual

Difference.22. Fora more sustaineddiscussionof love,see Badiou's "What s Love?" Badiou makesa

significantdistinctionbetweenthelove relationandthatof thecoupleper se. Thecouplerelation

is for Badiou a two thatis counted rom thepoint of viewof a three,whereas the superiorlove

relation s afigureof Two ubtractedfromnycount 270-72]. Badiou makesaparallelnumerical

analysisinSaintPaul,but n this case it is a questionof the three(the avoredChristiandiscourse)

preventing he our (themysticaldiscourse) rom collapsingonto the two (theJewishdiscourse)

[53]. Thedenigrationof the Jewish discourse and its equationwitha "logic of signs" is one ofthe mostproblematicmoments n Saint Paul.Badiou's notionof thecouplehas been clarified or

148



of this genericfit in? What would Badioudo withsomeonelikeAntigonewho chooses

to die out of devotionto a siblingrather han ove fora husbandora child?Andalreadythat sibling, the brother,bears the mark of the (albeit incestuous) sexual difference.

What about ove for a sister,such as Ismene's love forhersisterAntigone,dismissed as

it is frommost analysesof theplay?23AlthoughLacan s animportanthinkerof sexual

difference, t is not for nothingthat he devotesan entireyear'sseminar o the questionof desire,something,as notedabove,inextricablyinkedtodeath.In thisseminar,Lacan

repeatedly nvokes a phantasmatic pecteror devil that ies behindwhatmightbe seen

as one unified thing or meaning, in fact showing it to be double, but double in a

nondialectical ashion so that hespectraldouble s notbrought ntoa relationof number

butin fact lies ever andillusively outside it. In short,the relationof desire,as opposedto love, does not so much define theTwo, as in Badiou'sexample,butunderscores he

difficultyof determining he difference between the One and the Two (as in Lacan's

sessionin the ethics seminar hatdetails"Antigonebetween the two deaths" 270-87]).

Whatis exceptionalaboutAntigoneis that she cannotbe situatedreadily n the domainof love (or for that matterof politics, art,or science). Instead she encountersa limit-

experienceby conjoining,as it were,theregistersof death,theinhuman,andthefamily.

Antigone emergesin Lacan'sreadingas a figurewho, becauseof heradherence o

the perverted amily (over and above the prescribedregistersof love, marriage,and

children), s capableof an extremepolitical disruption, or with herdeath,theTheban

royal familyis effectivelydecimated.It is interestingn this regard o note that the film

Germany nAutumndepictsthe controversyover whether to air a televised version of

Antigone nthewake of the"suicide"of Baader-MeinhofeaderGudrunEnsslin,whose

story-downto the

fraught relationshipwith her sister-has

striking parallelsto

Sophocles'splay.24 his filmdramatizes he subversivepoliticalpotentialof Antigone's

story, somethingthat Lacan'sreadingalso dramatizeson the level of the psyche. In

both, the potentialfor political disruption(thoughit is a point of debate among the

televisionproducersn thefilm as to whetheror notairing heplayat this time will have

anymeasurable ffectatall) andthe encounterwith thelimit-experiencearefully on the

surface.Badiou's truth-process,by contrast, s not nearlyso readableon the surface;

rather,t is purelypositive yet legible in retrospect. f it turnsnegative,thenit turnsout

that the universal truthhas been betrayed.The Antigone-eventdoes not lay claim to

such a universal status-it does nothope to found a churchor a universalorder-but

rather t openly representsanextremeparticularityhatmayeffect generalchange,andin anycase, it highlightsthe fraughtnatureof ethical action.

meby TracyMcNulty'sdetailedanalysisofboth "Whats Love?"and SaintPaul nherforthcoming

essay "FeminineLoveand the Pauline Universal."

23. My thinkingabout thefunction of thefigures of the sister and the little girl is much

indebtedto twounpublished apers byAnnieWagner,nparticular"LacanandtheImageof the

LittleGirlinSophocles'sAntigone."Formoreon how thesisterfunction s traditionally xcluded,see Juliet Flower MacCannell'sThe Regime of the Brother:After the Patriarchy, sp. 18. She

writes that "thegirl underpatriarchy sfaced with an inhumanchoice: to do withoutan identity,or to identifywith what she is not" [25, myemphasis].InAntigone'sClaim,JudithButlermakes

the incisive observationthat,since OedipusandAntigoneare bornof the samemotherJocasta,

Antigone's ather is also herbrother,urtherpervertingthe unctionof brother-lovesee esp. 61,

67].24. Fora provocativelinking of discoursesof terrorismand twins(especiallysisters) that

readsthis ilm alongsideMargarethevon Trottas MarianneandJuliane,see Beckman.




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