Interview with

Let’s begin with the title of one of your books: C

R
Why Psychoanalysis? So: why psychoanalysis? I
S
I ask this question from a particular perspective, let’s call it philosophical. I

Alenka Zupančič:
S
In principle, in the same way you don’t ask “Why biology?” – except
perhaps if you are a hardline creationist –, you don’t ask “Why &
psychoanalysis?” – except if you want to suggest that it should be C
banned or forgotten altogether. But psychoanalysis is not exactly like

Philosophy or
R
biology, or any other science, in spite of Freud’s indisputable scientific I
T
aspirations. And this is not simply because its object is so “subjective”, I
elusive, uncertain, impalpable, but because it touches the very core of Q

Psychoanalysis?
the question “What is a subject?”, as well as “What is an object?”. To U
E
cut a long story short, this is the answer to your question. This is “why
psychoanalysis”. And, of course, because of the way these questions get /
discussed in – particularly – Lacanian psychoanalysis: in an extremely Volume 6 /

Yes, please!
surprising and productive way, that is productive for philosophy and its Issue 1
practice.
At the moment when philosophy was just about ready to abandon
some of its key central notions as belonging to its own metaphysical
past, from which it was eager to escape, along came Lacan, and taught
us an invaluable lesson: it is not these notions themselves that are
problematic; what can be problematic in some ways of doing philosophy
is the disavowal or effacement of the inherent contradiction, even

Agon Hamza &

antagonism, that these notions imply, and are part of. That is why, by
simply abandoning these notions (like subject, truth, the real…), we
are abandoning the battlefield, rather than winning any significant

Frank Ruda
battles. This conviction and insistence is also what makes the so-called
“Lacanian philosophy” stand out in the general landscape of postmodern
philosophy.

It was with Lacan, despite his struggle against philosophy,

that psychoanalysis got massively involved, and appeared at
the forefront, as it were, of the contemporary philosophical
debates and discussions. However, since its inception with
Freud, psychoanalysis has been attacked from all sides and
for different reasons than philosophy has been attacked for.
How would you locate the proper place of psychoanalysis
in the wider field of the sciences? We are asking this also
because some claim that psychoanalysis, especially following
Lacan, is first and foremost a clinical practice and should not
be considered to be a “theoretical” enterprise. In this sense
it would not be a science (and if we are not mistaken, Lacan
famously remarked that the subject of psychoanalysis is the
subject of modern science, but not that psychoanalysis is a
science). What is your view on this?

435 Interview with Alenka Zupančič

I think it’s quite obvious that psychoanalysis is, and has always been, C confrontation, opposition between philosophy (or theory) and clinic is in C
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both: “theory” and clinical “practice”. Moreover, clinical practice itself I my view a very unproductive one. Which brings us back to your inaugural I
has always been both, theory and practice. I think it is quite erroneous S question: psychoanalysis is not a science, or “scientific” in the usual S
to perceive the clinic as a kind of experimental site, as a laboratory I sense of this term, because it insists on a dimension of truth which is I
S S
from which psychoanalysis derives its concepts and theories. The mere irreducible to “accuracy” or to simple opposition true/false. At the same
fact that – as Freud already noticed – analysand’s knowledge about & time the whole point of Lacan is that this insistence doesn’t simply make &
psychoanalysis affects her unconscious formations, the analysis of which C
it unscientific (unverifiable, without any firm criteria…), but calls for a C
“informs” psychoanalytic theory, should be enough to make us discard R different kind of formalization and situates psychoanalysis in a singular R
this simple notion of the laboratory. I believe that genuine psychoanalytic I position in the context of science. And here philosophy, which is also I
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concepts are not derivatives of the clinic, but kind of “comprise” or I not a science in the usual sense of the term, can and should be its ally, I
contain the clinic, an element of the clinical, in themselves. I believe it Q even partner. They are obviously not the same, but their often very critical Q
is possible to work with these concepts in a very productive way (that is U dialogue shouldn’t obfuscate the fact that there are also “sisters in U
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a way that allows for something interesting and new to emerge) even if arms”.
you are not a clinician. But you need to have an ear, a sensibility for that / /
clinical element, for that bit of the real comprised in these concepts. Of Volume 6 /
You are very careful not to identify philosophy with Volume 6 /
this I’m sure. Not everybody who works with psychoanalytic theory has Issue 1 psychoanalysis but you do also not simply oppose the two Issue 1
it, but – and this is an important “but” – not everybody who practices either. In Why Psychoanalysis, do you argue the following:
analysis has it either. As Lacan knew very well and liked to repeat – to
be a practicing analyst is in itself not a guarantee for anything. His feud The question of sexuality should indeed be brutally
with the established psychoanalytic schools and institutions was actually put on the table in any serious attempt at associating
much harsher than his dispute with philosophy as “theory”. As you see, philosophy and psychoanalysis. Not only because it
I shifted your question a bit, and for a reason. One of the predominant usually constitutes the ‘hard core’ of their dissociation,
ways or strategies with which psychoanalysts today aim at preserving but also because not giving up on the matter of sexuality
their “scientific” standing, is by trying to disentangle themselves from constitutes the sine qua non of any true psychoanalytic
philosophy (or theory), returning as it were to pure clinic. I think this is a stance, which seems to make this dissociation all more
very problematic move. absolute or insurmountable
The Clinic should not be considered as a kind of holy grail providing
the practitioners with automatic superiority when it comes to working You then propose a specific form of articulation between
theoretically, with psychoanalytic concepts. psychoanalysis and philosophy. How do you see the
There are, perhaps even increasingly so, attacks coming from the relationship between the two disciplines? Psychoanalysis
clinical side against “mere theorists” who are condemned for being could be viewed to be emphasizing a new account of
engaged in pure sophistry, operating on a purely conceptual level and difference – but there also seems to be something internally
hence depriving psychoanalysis of its radical edge, of its real. Yes, there unassimilable in the way in which psychoanalysis conceives of
are many poor, self-serving or simply not inspiring texts around, leaning difference under the heading of sexuality. Why and what is so
strongly – reference-wise – on psychoanalytic theory, and producing resistant in psychoanalysis – a concept of difference different
nothing remarkable. But interestingly, they are not the main targets of from all conceptual differences that is associated with the
these attacks. No, the main targets are rather people whose “theorizing” tradition of philosophy?
has effects, impact, and makes waves (outside the purely academic
territories). They are accused of playing a purely self-serving, sterile I’m deeply convinced that psychoanalysis (its fundamental discoveries/
game. I see this as profoundly symptomatic. For we have to ask: when theories) is an event that concerns philosophy itself, and which the latter
was the last time that a genuinely new concept, with possibly universal cannot ignore, nor pretend that nothing happened there that concerns
impact, came from the side of the accusers, that is, from the clinical side? it. Philosophy is not psychoanalysis today no more than it has been in
There is an obvious difficulty there, and it is certainly not “theoretical the past. Philosophy has its own way of functioning, its own practice, if
psychoanalysts” that are the cause of it, for there is no shortage of you want. It also involves certain conceptual decisions. Like the decision
practicing analysts around, compared to, say, Freud’s time. This kind of to work with concepts that comprise an element of “heterogeneity”

436 Interview with Alenka Zupančič 437 Interview with Alenka Zupančič
that I mentioned before. The question is how to handle these concepts. C I see this proliferation of new ontologies as a symptom. On the one C
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To assimilate them entirely in philosophy, like translating them into I hand, there is a truth, or conceptual necessity, in this kind of “return to I
already existing philosophical concepts, would be a failure – not of S ontology”. Philosophy should not be ashamed of serious ontological S
psychoanalysis, but of philosophy. But let me be very precise here: I’m not I inquiry, and the interrogation here is vital and needed. There is, however, I
S S
propagating a philosophical affair with that which “resists philosophy” something slightly comical when this need is asserted as an abstract or
(namely, psychoanalysis), a romantic engagement with a heterogeneity & normative necessity — “one should do this,” and then everybody feels &
that philosophy can never fully assimilate. No, my point is that philosophy C
that he or she needs to have their own ontology. “I am such and such, C
can assimilate psychoanalysis, and if it doesn’t, this constitutes a genuine R and here’s my ontology.” There is a lot of arbitrariness here, rather than R
philosophical, conceptual decision and necessitates a philosophical I conceptual necessity and rigor. This is not how philosophy works. I
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invention; the distance/gap is produced in this case from within I Also, there is this rather bafflingly simplifying claim according to I
philosophy itself. But how? You mention sexuality, my insistence on this. Q which Kant and the “transcendental turn” to epistemology was just a Q
And the concept of difference, of a different kind of difference. Deleuze is U big mistake, error, diversion — which we have to dismiss and “return” to U
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a good example here. He is definitely a full-blown philosopher, and often ontology proper, to talking about things as they are in themselves. Kant’s
very critical of psychoanalysis, but when he is developing his major and / transcendental turn was an answer to a real impasse of philosophical /
genuinely new concept of difference (a different kind of difference), he Volume 6 /
ontology. We can agree that his answer is perhaps not the ultimate, Volume 6 /
massively relies on Freud and psychoanalysis, particularly on the theory of Issue 1 or philosophically, the only viable answer, but this does not mean that Issue 1
the drives. He relies on Freud and psychoanalysis not simply to import or the impasse or difficulty that it addresses was not real and that we can
assimilate its insights, but to think differently in philosophy. pretend it doesn’t exist. 
My claim is that the Freudian notion of sexuality is above all a The attempt to “return to” the idea of sexuality as a subject of
concept, a conceptual invention, and not simply a name for certain ontological investigation is rooted in my conviction that psychoanalysis
empirical “activities” that exist out there and that Freud refers to and its singular concept of the subject are of great pertinence for the
when talking about sexuality. As such, this concept is also genuinely impasse of ontology that Kant was tackling. So the claim is not simply
“philosophical”. It links together, in a complex and most interesting way, that sexuality is important and should be taken seriously; in a sense, it
language and the drives, it compels us to think a singular ontological is spectacularly more ambitious. The claim is that the Freudo-Lacanian
form of negativity, to reconsider the simplistic human/animal divide, and theory of sexuality, and of its inherent relation to the unconscious,
so on… dislocates and transposes the philosophical question of ontology and
There is a widespread return of ontology, ontologies even, after its impasse in a most interesting way. I’m not interested in sexuality as a
a long period in which ontological claims were almost always case of “local ontology,” but as possibly providing some key conceptual
bracketed as metaphysical or replaced by a straightforwardly elements for the ontological interrogation as such.
pragmatist approach. But is this proliferation of ontologies
symptomatic of something else? We read your most recent We apologize for making this move twice, but you yourself
work as an attempt to offer, if not answer, this question. We are raise such far reaching questions with some of your book
saying this because your reading of the concept of sexuality titles that we think it is best to simply repeat them. So, what is
has a bearing on the most fundamental ontological concepts. sex?
Yet, at the same time, you do not simply suggest to identify the
psychoanalytic account of sexuality with ontology – so that This title is not meant as a question to which then the book provides an
psychoanalysis would simply be the newest name of ontology. answer. It is not so much a question as it is a claim. We usually talk about
Rather in psychoanalysis, if we are not mistaken, we can find or invoke sex as if we knew exactly what we are talking about, yet we don’t.
an account of being and its impasses and of subjectivity and And the book is rather an answer to the question why this is so.
its impasses. Both are systematically interlaced (in such a One of the fundamental claims of my book is that there is something
way that subjectivity with its impasses has something to do about sexuality that is inherently problematic, “impossible”, and is not
with being and its impasses). And this conceptual knot has such simply because of external obstacles and prohibitions. What we have
an impact on our very understanding: not only of sexuality’s been witnessing over more than half a century has been a systematic
ontological import, but also on our understanding of ontology obliteration, effacement, repression of this negativity inherent to sexuality
itself. Could you help us disentangle some bits of this knot? – and not simply repression of sexuality. Freud did not discover sexuality,

438 Interview with Alenka Zupančič 439 Interview with Alenka Zupančič
he discovered its problem, its negative core, and the role of this core in the C Sexuality certainly proves itself to stand at the center of C
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proliferation of the sexual. Sexuality has been, and still is, systematically I psychoanalysis. But it is, as you demonstrate, something I
reduced, yes, reduced, to a self-evident phenomenon consisting simply S quite different, far less juicy if you wish, than what we might S
of some positive features, and problematic only because caught in I immediately assume when we hear “sex”. In what way is I
S S
the standard ideological warfare: shall we “liberally” show and admit thinking sexuality specific to psychoanalysis? What we mean
everything, or “conservatively” hide and prohibit most of it? But show & is the following: is sexuality an object or does it name a realm &
or prohibit what exactly, what is this “it” that we try to regulate when we C
of phenomena that allows to define the singularity of the C
regulate sexuality? This is what the title of my book tries to ask: What IS R psychoanalytic discourse? Or could there also be a philosophy R
this sex that we are talking about? Is it really there, anywhere, as a simply I of sexuality (Kant for example talked about marriage, Hegel I
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positive entity to be regulated in this or that way? No, it is not. And this is I had to say things about women, Plato, too, but, well, is this I
precisely why we are “obsessed” with it, in one way or another, also when Q enough)? In what way would it be imprecise to assume that Q
we want to get rid of it altogether. U this is what you are doing? U
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The question orientating the book was not simply what kind of being
is sex, or sexuality, but pointed in a different direction. Sex is neither / It would be imprecise in the sense that I actually don’t “talk about /
simply being, nor a quality or a coloring of being. It is a paradoxical Volume 6 /
sexuality”. If you read my book, not only is there no “juicy” discussion Volume 6 /
entity that defies ontology as “thought of being qua being”, without Issue 1 of sex, you will learn nothing about “sexual behavior” in the sense, say, Issue 1
falling outside ontological interrogation. It is something that takes place of erotology. The question is rather what are the onto-logical impasses
(“appears”) at the point of its own impossibility and/or contradiction. So and contradictions that generate this “juiciness”? The interesting
the question is not: WHAT is sex?, but rather: What IS sex? However, question about sexuality discovered by Freud cut into the question of
the two questions are not unrelated, and this is probably the most daring sexual meaning by relating this meaning itself to the question of (sexual)
philosophical proposition of the book. Namely, that sexuality is the point satisfaction. In other words, generating sexual meanings, juicy stories
of a short circuit between ontology and epistemology. If there is a limit and innuendo is itself an immediate source of sexual satisfaction,
to what I can know, what is the status of this limit? Does it only tell us sometimes much stronger than an act of copulation... So the question is
something about our subjective limitations on account of which we can not “What can we know about sex?”, but rather: What kind of knowledge
never fully grasp being such as it is in itself? Or is there a constellation does IT (i.e., sex) transmit, if we take into account the circular, redoubled
in which this not-knowing possibly tells us something about being itself, and complex way of its functioning, the way it is organized around its own
its own “lapse of being”? There is, I believe; it is the constellation that gaps and contradictions? This is what I invoked earlier as the short-circuit
Freud conceptualized under the name of the unconscious. Sexuality is between ontology and epistemology.
not simply the content of the unconscious, understood as a container of
repressed thoughts. The relationship between sex and the unconscious Adorno once claimed that “in psychoanalysis, nothing is true
is not that between a content and its container. Or that between some except the exaggeration.” Is it necessary to exaggerate the
primary, raw being, and repression (and other operations) performed on it. workings and effects of sexuality to make its truth appear?
The unconscious is a thought process, and it is “sexualized” from within,
so to say. The unconscious is not sexual because of the dirty thoughts it Adorno’s is an extremely important point: contrary to the adage according
may contain or hide, but because of how it works. If I keep emphasizing to which the truth is always “somewhere in the middle”, particularly if we
that I’m interested in the psychoanalytical concept of sexuality, and not deal with exaggerations and opposite claims, psychoanalysis claims that
simply in sexuality, it is because of the fundamental link between sexuality we must have an ear for truth, so to say. Truth is not the biggest common
and the unconscious discovered by Freud. Sexuality enters the Freudian denominator of different claims, nor is it the golden middle between
perspective strictly speaking only in so far as it is “unconscious sexuality”. opposite claims, but is to be looked for in what is there in the extremes of
Yet “unconscious sexuality” does not simply mean that we are not a given situation. Because extremes usually point to contradictions, to
aware of it, while it constitutes a hidden truth of most of our actions. “something going on”, or something being erased. And this is where an
Unconsciousness does not mean the opposite of consciousness, it refers “ear” for truth is needed.
to an active and ongoing process, the work of censorship, substitution, So, it is not that we need to overemphasize the role of sex in order
condensation…, and this work is itself “sexual”, implied in desire, intrinsic to make its truth appear, sex has this tendency of overemphasizing itself,
to sexuality, rather than simply performed in relation to it. so to speak, and this is why it is a good place to start. And I’m not after

440 Interview with Alenka Zupančič 441 Interview with Alenka Zupančič
the truth of sex, but rather after the truth of the onto-logical configuration C of brain sciences. “Psychology” in the psychoanalytic perspective is C
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in which sex appears as it appears. What this eventually implies is that I not simply the effect of the structure, it is also the effect of a gap in this I
sex is the point of exaggeration of our – both social and biological – S structure. It is inseparable from, and inexistent without the structure, S
reality, that it is its excessiveness, its extreme – and as such it is also a I yet at the same time not simply reducible to it, because it (co)responds I
S S
possible point of its truth. to something in the structure which is not (fully there). And this is what
& the Freudian concept of the unconscious – particularly in its Lacanian &
How do you conceive of the relationship between sexuality C
reading – is all about. This is also why Lacan will say that the status of the C
and the Freudian-Lacanian conception of the unconscious? R (Freudian) unconscious is “ethical”, rather than ontic. R
We know that this is a very broad question, but maybe you I I
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could tell us a few things about the specificity of the link I One of the most famous Lacanian claims is that “la femme I
between sex and the unconscious – so that, say, it becomes Q n’existe pas” – woman does not exist. But as you have shown, Q
also more apparent why there is a difference between U thinking through sexuality we are forced to confront the fact U
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psychoanalysis and some rather empirical sciences that also that the problem is not simply that we have men on the one
attempt to study the ways in which we function, like brain / side and a not-existing woman on the other, but that even men /
sciences. Volume 6 /
are not fully constituted. So, it is not that we have something Volume 6 /
Issue 1 that is and then something that is not; we have two sides Issue 1
Brain sciences are, to some extent at least, a pretty heterogeneous field, on which something appears which is only in a strange way.
difficult to discuss under a single heading. But nevertheless. To some In what sense does it force us to reconsider fundamental
extent what is at stake in this debate between psychoanalysis and brain ontological claims if we read sexuality as confronting us with
sciences today is a battle for psychology. This will sound strange coming such a peculiar difference, with a difference that even differs
from me, because I often insist on the necessity to “de-psychologize” from Deleuze’s account of pure difference, and maybe might
all sorts of notions related to psychoanalysis, but I believe the time be described as an impure difference? In what sense does
has come to rethink what this actually means. What Freud refers to non-being (the non-being consistently constituted of the man
and grounds as “psychology” is very different from what psychological and the not-being consistently constituted of the woman), or
sciences have in mind (and in this respect psychology as science is maybe non-beings and their relation have consequences?
quite compatible with brain sciences). As a student of mine, Bojan Volf,
working on the question of socio-psychological experiments has rightly The starting point of all these arguments in Lacan, which look very
pointed out, the whole machinery of official, scientific psychology is strange and complicated, is actually very simple. Being, or existence,
out on a mission to de-psychologize our behavior, that is to say, on a is coextensive with the signifier. Something “is” if it has a signifier, if
mission to explain psychology away. Official, “scientific” psychology it exists in the symbolic order. This is Lacan’s “diagnostic”, his way
seems to be needed in order to dismiss psychology as possibly involving of saying that we should not confuse, or fuse, being and the real. So,
a fundamentally different kind of causality from the so-called natural something exists if it exists in the symbolic order. Now, does the symbolic
causality. And it is here that psychoanalysis breaks away from psychology order exist? Lacan’s paradoxical answer is: No. You can view this as a
and brain sciences. Not by insisting on some deeper and impenetrably version of Russell’s catalogue paradox: symbolic order does not exist in
mysterious ways in which our psyche works, but by insisting that if another symbolic order. Symbolic order (or the Other) is like a catalogue
our psychology cannot be fully reduced to the (organic and linguistic) that would contain itself. This is the original template of the “does not
structures that generate it, it is because these structures themselves are exist” statements: the Other does not exist. The Other is not-all, it is
not fully consistent, but involve gaps and contradictions. “inconsistent” in the logical sense, it is grounded only in itself, and not
We could perhaps say that according to psychoanalysis, our in any other Other. The same goes for “the Woman” who doesn’t exist.
psychology fills in the gaps in “natural” or structural causality. Differently from “man”, who exists.
And when we speak of de-psychologization in psychoanalysis, But of course you can ask why this is so: are “man” and “woman”
we speak about the dismantling of this “filling in”, of this stuffing, and not both signifiers? Why then one would exist and the other not?
exposing the gaps and contradictions of the structure itself. And not Because the signifier at stake in sexual difference is phallus, and
about reducing everything to this structure as fully coherent, which is not “man” or “woman”. And phallus is the signifier not of men, but of
basically the mission of psychology as science, and the presupposition castration, which for Lacan is a universal function when it comes to

442 Interview with Alenka Zupančič 443 Interview with Alenka Zupančič
speaking beings: nobody escapes it. Why is phallus, which also refers C Demands for social equality are of course important, but they are part of C
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to an anatomic organ, the universal signifier of castration? Because I a larger struggle. Early feminism was significantly connected to the class I
one of the most salient features of this organ is that it can also not be S struggle, and this connection is vital. Not because class needs to prevail S
there. Phallus obtains its value of the signifier against the background I over sex, but because issues of “women” and of “class” are structurally I
S S
of its possible and easily perceptible absence. Put even more bluntly: connected, they question the very constitution of a given social order, not
it is because roughly half of the human race doesn’t have it (as organ), & simply some redistribution within it. To be sure, some redistributions can &
that this organ is elevated to the ranks of the signifier, to the rank of C
have the effect of shifting, affecting, the very constitution of the social C
the universal. There is no contradiction here. Nor “discrimination” (the R order, and relatively “small”, modest demands can sometimes become R
latter surely exists, but it doesn’t start here). Phallus is not a signifier I revolutionary. So these two levels are connected, but they are still two, I
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because men have it and masculinity is naturally favored, but because I and the social struggle is not simply about jumping on the winning-side’s I
women don’t have it, and this negativity, this non-immediacy, this gap, Q train which keeps on running on the fuel of injustice and discrimination. Q
is constitutive for the signifying order. Now, the question of sexual U This, for example, is the problem of the co-called “glass ceiling” U
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difference is that of how one relates to this signifier or, which is the feminism. It involves obliterating the very difference that, also socially
same question, how does one handle castration, relate to it. Men are / speaking, makes a difference. Feminism cannot be exempted from other /
identified as those who venture to put their faith into the hands of this Volume 6 /
issues of social injustice, no more than it can be subordinated to them. Volume 6 /
signifier, hence acknowledging symbolic castration (the signifier now Issue 1 But let us return to the phallic signifier as that which is at stake in Issue 1
represents them, operates on their behalf), with different degrees of how sexual difference. It is important to point out the following. With “phallus
(un)conscious this acknowledgement actually is. There are many men as signifier” the situation is not that anatomy is caught up in the symbolic
who strongly repress the dimension of castration involved in their access order, but almost the opposite: the symbolic order is caught up in some
to symbolic power, and believe that this power emanates directly from anatomical contingency, which makes it, yes, “impure”. For Lacan, to
them, from some positivity of their being, and not from the minus that name this symbolic function “phallic” is to expose the contingency at
constitutes phallus as the signifier. The anatomy obviously plays a part the heart of the symbolic order. This is what the critics who suggest
in facilitating this “masculine” identification, but the latter still remains to replace the signifier phallus with something else, fail to see. As I
precisely that: an identification, and not a direct, immediate consequence developed more extensively in my book on comedy, it would be very
of anatomy. One can be anatomically a man and this identification doesn’t wrong to think that the so called “phallocentrism” could be countered
take place. Not all subjects identify with the signifier (of castration) in by a politically correct restriction regarding the use of the term phallus,
this way, accept its representation of them, take the symbolic order at is replacing it by something more neutral. As it is more than clear from
face value, so to say. Those who do not, identify as “women”, and tend history, phallocentrism can work splendidly, and much better, if phallus
to expose the “nothing”, the gap at the very core of the signifier and of is not directly named, but remains veiled and reserved for Mysteries. One
symbolic identifications. should also not forget that it was only with the advent of psychoanalysis
This opens a really interesting perspective on psychoanalysis that the talk about phallocentrism really took off in the first place.
and feminism, which is often missed. It is not that women are not Psychoanalysis first of all equipped us with the very terms we use in the
acknowledged, fully recognized by the symbolic, oppressed by it; no, to critical thinking about all this. By using the name phallic signifier, Lacan
begin with, women are subjects who question the symbolic, women are the is very far from idealizing an anatomic peculiarity of men, promoting it
ones who, by their very positioning, do not fully “acknowledge” its order, into an ultimate reference of human reality. His gesture is exactly the
who keep signaling its negative, not-fully-there dimension. This is what opposite: on the very ground where, throughout centuries, there existed
makes them women, and not simply an empirical absence of an organ. only a cultural signification of phallus, that is to say (religious, as well as
This is their strength – but also the reason for their social repression, the other) rituals and symbolic practices enwrapping the Mystery of Man and
reason why they “need to be managed” or “put in their place”. But these dictating the hierarchical structures of his universe as emanating directly
are two different levels. If we don’t keep in mind the difference between from this supreme Mystery – on this very ground steps Lacan, and Freud
these two levels, we risk to fall prey to versions of liberal feminism which before him, to say: surprise, surprise, the Mystery is nothing else but the
loses sight of precisely the radical positioning of “women”, depriving this phallus; the symbolic order hinges here on an anatomical peculiarity: on
position of its inherent thrust to question the symbolic order and all kinds contingency.
of circulating identities, replacing this thrust with the simpler demand to Contingency is not the same as relativism. If all is relative,
become part of this circulation, to be fully recognized by the given order. there is no contingency. Contingency means precisely that there is a

444 Interview with Alenka Zupančič 445 Interview with Alenka Zupančič
heterogeneous, contingent element that strongly, absolutely decides C suggest that subject is a kind of neutral universal substrate on which C
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the structure, the grammar of its necessity – it doesn’t mean that this I ideology works, like “individuals” seem to be in Althusser’s formula. No, I
element doesn’t really decide it, or that we are not dealing with necessity. S subject is – if you’d pardon my language – a universal fuck-up of a neutral S
To just abstractly assert and insist that the structure could have been I substrate, it is a crack in this substrate. But this in itself is not what I
S S
also very different from what it is, is not enough. This stance also implies resists ideology, on the contrary, it is rather what makes its functioning
that we could have simply decided otherwise, and that this decision is in & possible, it is what offers it a grip. Subject as a crack, or as interrogation &
our power. But contingency is not in our power, by definition, otherwise it C
mark, is in a sense “responsible” for the ideological interpellation having C
wouldn’t be contingency. Ignoring this leads to the watered-down, liberal R a grip on us. Only a subject will turn around, perplexed, upon hearing R
version of freedom. Freedom understood as the freedom to choose, for I “Hey, you!” But this is not all. Precisely because the subject is not a I
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instance between different, also sexual, identities. But this is bullshit, and I neutral substrate to be molded into this or that ideological figure or I
has little to do with freedom, because it doesn’t even begin to touch the Q shape, but a negativity, a crack, this crack is not simply eliminated when Q
grammar of necessity which frames the choices that we have. Freedom U an ideological identification/recognition takes place, but becomes part U
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is a matter of fighting, of struggle, not of choosing. Necessities can and of it. It can be filled up, or screened off, but its structure is not exactly
do change, but not because they are not really necessities and merely / eliminated, because ideology is only efficient against its background. /
matters of choice. Volume 6 /
So not only is the subject in this sense a condition of ideology, it also Volume 6 /
Issue 1 constitutes its inner limit, its possible breaking point, its ceasing to Issue 1
Althusser claimed that ideology interpellates individuals into function and losing its grip on us. The subject, as negativity, keeps on
subjects. Does sexuality do the same? working in all ideological structures, the latter are not simply monolithic
and unassailable, but also fundamentally instable because of this
Nice point. It does, but not exactly in the Althusserian sense. As ongoing work.
I keep insisting, the sexual in psychoanalysis is a factor of radical Ideology is not something that we can resist (as subjects). This
disorientation, something that keeps bringing into question all our usually gets us no further than to a posture of ironical or cynical distance.
representations of the entity called “human being.” This is why it would It is not by “mastering” our relation to ideology that we are subjects, we
also be a big mistake to consider that, in Freudian theory, the sexual is are, or become, emancipatory subjects by a second identification which is
the ultimate horizon of the animal called “human,” a kind of anchor point only made possible within the ideological parallax: say by identifying with
of irreducible humanity in psychoanalytic theory; on the contrary, it is the underdog, by locating the gaps that demands and generate “positive”
the operator of the inhuman, the operator of dehumanization. And this repression… In a word, the subject is both, the problem and the possible
is precisely what clears the ground for a possible theory of the subject (emancipatory) solution.
(as developed by Lacan), in which the subject is something other than
simply another name for an individual or a “person.” Moreover, it is How does such a position allow for a different take on
precisely the sexual as the operator of the inhuman that opens the contemporary political movements that are precisely trying to
perspective of the universal in psychoanalysis, which it is often accused (again maybe) politicize sex (think of the LGBTQ+ but also of
of missing because of its insistence on the sexual (including sexual #MeToo)?
difference). What Freud calls the sexual is thus not that which makes
us human in any received meaning of this term, it is rather that which I strongly believe, perhaps against all contemporary odds, that the
makes us subjects, or perhaps more precisely, it is coextensive with the inherent and radical political edge of sexuality consists in how it compels
emergence of the subject. us to think the difference. A difference that makes the difference.
So this subject is not the Althusserian subject of interpellation, This is what I tried to say earlier, concerning the question of “sexual
emerging from “recognition”. But this is not simply to say that (the difference” and feminism. In the LGBTQ+ movement I perceive a similar
Lacanian) subject is directly an antidote for ideological interpellation. general course or destiny as in the feminist movement, that is a shift
Things are a bit more complicated than that. I would almost be tempted to from struggle aligned with political struggle for social transformation, to
turn Althusser’s formula around. Not “ideology interpellates individuals identity movement and struggle for recognition.
into subjects”, but rather: ideology interpellates subjects into individuals There are very few people who feel perfectly and completely at
with this or that identity. In some sense, ideology works like “identity home in their bodies and sexual identities, starting with those who think
politics”. By turning the Althusserian formula around I don’t mean to of themselves as men and women. And one could plausibly argue that

446 Interview with Alenka Zupančič 447 Interview with Alenka Zupančič
these (who feel perfectly and completely at home in their bodies and C as ways in which we construct our sexuality in relation to the sexual C
R R
sexual identities) are not exactly what one would call ‘normal people’, I division which, in turn, is often reduced to a merely biological division. I
since the latter are usually prone to have all kinds of tormenting doubts S This retrospective naturalization of the “masculinity” and “femininity” S
and uncertainties in this respect. There is a reason for this, and Freud was I is indeed a curious effect of switching from “sex” to indefinite number I
S S
the first to point it out: sexuality appeared to Freud as redoubled by its of gender(s). When it comes to describing specific features of these
own inherent impasse and difficulty. & genders’ particular identities, terms “man” and “woman” are often used &
Ok, goes the objection, those who think of themselves as men and C
in these descriptions as natural elements which then get combined in C
women may well have their own uncertainties and identity problems, but R different ways and in different compounds. R
these are not problems of social discrimination based on their sexuality. I There are several problems at work here, which should be I
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Really? The history of feminism has a different story to tell. The fact that I discussed. It may be politically correct to sweep them under the carpet, I
“woman” has always been a legitimate sexual position or “identity” did Q but at the same time this is precisely politically wrong. Because this way, Q
nothing to prevent all kinds of atrocities, injustices and discriminations U we also sweep politics (of sex) under the carpet. So let’s briefly discuss U
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being conducted against women. Do we need to remind ourselves, this. On the webpage containing a “Comprehensive list of LGBTQ+
for example, that women only got the right to vote in 1920 in the US, in / vocabulary definitions” we read for example: /
1944 in France, in 1971 in Switzerland (at federal level), and in 1984 in Volume 6 / Volume 6 /
Liechtenstein? And one would be wrong to assume that these battles Issue 1 “We [the creators of this webpage] are constantly honing Issue 1
were won once and for all. Recently the alt-right leader Richard Spencer and adjusting language to — our humble goal — have the
openly said for Newsweek that he was not sure that women should vote. definitions resonate with at least 51 out of 100 people who
The fact that it is even possible to say something like this publicly should use the words. Identity terms are tricky, and trying to write a
give us a strong jolt. description that works perfectly for everyone using that label
The fact that to be a “woman” has always been a socially simply isn’t possible.”
recognized sexual position, did little to protect women against harsh
social discrimination (as well as physical mistreatment) based precisely Language is understood and used here as a tool with which we try to
on this “recognized” sexuality. Part of this discrimination, or the very fit some reality. The problem with this is not simply that this reality is
way in which it was carried out, has always led through definitions (and already “constituted” through language; but also that language itself
images) of what exactly does it mean to be a woman. So a recognized is “constituted” through a certain sexual impasse. This, at least, is a
identity itself does not necessarily help. And the point is also not to fill fundamental Freudo-Lacanian lesson: sex is not some realm or substance
in the identity of “woman” with the right content, but to empty it of all to be talked about, it is in the first place the inherent contradiction of
content. More precisely, to recognize its form itself, its negativity, as its speech, twisting its tongue, so to speak. Which is why we can cover sex
only positive content. To be a woman is to be nothing. And this is good, with as many identities we like, the problem will not go away.
this should be the feminist slogan. Obviously, “nothing” is not used as It is in this sense that sex (as division, impossibility, as well as
an adjective here, describing a worth, it is used in the strong sense of the “sex struggle”) is sealed off when “sex” is replaced by “gender” and
noun. multiplicity of gender identities. But sex keeps returning in the form of the
So, what is sexual difference if we don’t shy away from thinking it? +. The + is not simply an indicator of our openness to future identities, it
Sexual difference is not a difference between masculine and feminine is the marker of Difference, and its repetition.
“genders”; it doesn’t start out as a difference between different entities/ As I put it some time ago: sex and sexual difference as understood
identities, but as an ontological impossibility inherent to the discursive by psychoanalysis are always in the +. Not because sex eludes any
order as such. Or, to use a Deleuzian parlance, it is the difference that positive symbolic grasp or identity, but because sex is where the
precedes individuation, precedes differences between individual entities, symbolic stumbles against its own lack of identity, its own impasse and
yet is involved in their generation. This impossibility, this impasse of the impossibility. (“The Woman doesn’t exist” is a way of formulating this.)
discourse exists within the discourse as its division. And constitutes, As it is sort of “visually striking” in the formula LGBTQ+, and many
or opens up, to a political dimension. This “radical” political dimension of its longer versions, identities are formed by way of externalizing the
is what tends to get lost in identity-recognition politics, and in the difference that always starts by barring them from within. And when a
terminological shift from “sex” (which originally refers to division, cut) new identity is formed, and hence a new letter added, it just pushes the +,
to “gender”. What are genders, as different from sexes? They are seen as the marker of the difference, a little bit further. The “bad infinity” (and

448 Interview with Alenka Zupančič 449 Interview with Alenka Zupančič
so on …) suggested in this form of writing is a symptom of our inability or C Žižek has repeatedly claimed that standard Marxists liked C
R R
refusal to think the difference as the form of what Hegel would call a true I psychoanalysis for a simple reason: if the masses did I
infinity. S not do what Marxist theoreticians believed they will (or S
The difference that is being thus repeated and externalized is I should) do, one could always claim that one therefore needs I
S S
one and the same difference. And this is the Difference (and not simply psychoanalysts so that they can explain to us why that is.
yet another identity) that makes a difference. This is the real meaning of & Psychoanalysis thus seemed to have the function to provide &
“sexual difference”. There may be many genders, but there is only the C
an easy way out and provided the means with which we C
singular sexual difference that is repeated with them, and expulsed/ R avoid confrontation with our own theoretical weaknesses or R
pushed forward when they are constituted as identities. I fallacies. In your recent work you addressed political issues I
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What I’m saying IS NOT that the difference between “men” I head on and dealt with issues that one could classically have I
and “women” is repeated with (the constitution of) all these different Q been allocated to the domain of the critique of ideology (for Q
identities; no, I’m saying that what is repeated with them is the U example in your analysis not of the emperor’s new clothes, U
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impossibility of this difference (the impossibility of a sexual “binary” but of his nudity having become his newest clothes). How
as difference between two entities or identities), which is the real of / would you describe the politics of psychoanalysis? Does /
sex. Emancipatory struggle never really works by way of enumerating a Volume 6 /
psychoanalysis have consequences for politics (and if so, Volume 6 /
multiplicity of identities and then declaring and embracing them all equal Issue 1 how)? Issue 1
(or the same). No, it works by mobilizing the absolute difference as means
of universalization in an emancipatory struggle. First, I think there is an inherently political dimension of psychoanalysis.
There is a joke from the times of the Apartheid that can help us see It has to do with the point of structural impasse and division that I keep
what is at stake here: A violent fight starts on a bus between black people insisting on. But it also has other aspects or facets. In What is sex? I
sitting in the back and white people sitting in front. The driver stops the invoke a very powerful scene from John Huston’s film Freud: The Secret
bus, makes everybody get out, lines them up in front of the bus, and yells Passion (1962). Freud is presenting his theory of infantile sexuality to a
at them: “Stop this fight immediately! As far as I’m concerned, you are all large audience of educated men. His brief presentation is met with strong
green. Now, those of the lighter shade of green please get on the bus in and loudly stated disapproval, interrupted by roars after almost every
front, and those of the darker shade, at the back.” sentence; several of the men leave the auditorium in protest, spitting
What this joke exposes concisely, in my view, is how “neutralization” on the floor next to Freud. At some point the chairman, trying to restore
strategy can be rather ineffective in stopping the perpetuation of order, cries out: “Gentlemen, we are not in a political meeting!” – This
discrimination. (“Queer” or “third sex” strategy sometimes function exclamation puts us on the right track: that of a strange, surprising
like the “green” in the joke). If we forget, or decide to let go of the coincidence between politics and psychoanalysis. Discussion of both can
concept of sexual difference in this radical sense, we risk ending up like provoke very passionate responses. They both work with passions and,
the passengers of this bus: declared non-sexual, yet continued to be even more generally, they both work with people, in the strong sense of
discriminated and/or “framed” on the basis of sex(uality). the term. What is perceived today as the rise of populisms may well be a
As for #MeToo, it is a very significant movement, already and simply consequence of the decades in which politics has stopped working with
because it is a movement. But movements have a way of sometimes people in any meaningful sense of this term. Public space was carefully
inhibiting their own power. #MeToo should not become about “joining and thoroughly cleansed of all political passions. Passions were preserved
the club” (of the victims), and about demanding that the Other (different for “private life”. (Except for just before the elections…) Political passion
social institutions and preventive measures) protect us against the villainy as a specific entity has been dismantled, disarticulated, as well as
of power, but about women and all concerned being empowered to create censored: it has become extremely suspicious to be really passionate
social change, and to be its agents. Movements generate this power, and about political ideas.
it is vital that one assumes it, which means leaving behind the identity of What is returning with populisms today is not the political passion.
victimhood. And this necessarily implies engagement in broader social What is happening is rather that passions are entering public space,
solidarity, recognizing the political edge of this struggle, and pursuing it. including political space, as fundamentally disarticulated from politics.
They are not in themselves political passions, but more like Pirandello’s
Can we talk briefly about the relationship between (six) characters in search of an author, that is to say, in most cases, of
psychoanalysis and politics in more general terms? Slavoj a Leader. They [populist passions] combine “politics” and politicians

450 Interview with Alenka Zupančič 451 Interview with Alenka Zupančič
who propose to embrace them, to put them on the loudspeaker, and not C (a category that was previously itself reserved for what C
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to genuinely politically articulate them. (For example, if Trump wanted I was considered to be pathological anormality). Obscenity, I
to politically articulate passions that got him elected, he would have to S he claims, is the kind of power that does not even try to S
invent a very different kind of politics…) I disguise its corruption and/or total incompetence any longer I
S S
If anything, the divide between politics and psychoanalysis does but displays it openly and precisely through this becomes
not correspond to the divide between public and private. On the contrary, & invincible to critique. In Europe, we might think of Berlusconi &
what they both have in common is that they work at, and with the C
who was the first to embody this kind of power (one should just C
intersection of, both. If you lose this intersection you lose both politics R remember the parties he celebrated with Gaddafi in the center R
and psychoanalysis. Which is to a large extent what happened in the past I of Rome and his electoral campaigns), yet today this power- I
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decades. The idea that you refer to in the first part of your question, that of I figure seems to be spreading. What to do with contemporary I
a possible division of labor in which psychoanalysis would take care of our Q political obscenity – as it seems to stand in a direct relation to Q
“private passions” and their pathologies, so that we could appear on the U sexuality? U
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public stage as fully rational beings, is terribly wrong. But I’m not saying
that this is impossible, no, as a matter of fact, this is precisely what has / Obscenity of power, which consists in openly displaying one’s faults and /
been strongly encouraged and did happen with the advance of “liberally- Volume 6 /
appetites, has two aspects today. One is related to what Angela Nagle Volume 6 /
democratic capitalism”. To eliminate passion from politics is to eliminate Issue 1 has pointed out: even if mostly taking place on the right, it flies on the Issue 1
politics (in any other sense than simple management). And this is what’s wings of the old “leftist” idea of breaking the taboos, of transgression
happened. But it is crucial here to avoid a possible misunderstanding: I’m and rebellion. They dare to speak up, say the forbidden things, challenge
not saying that politics needs to make space for passions as well, and the established structures (including the media). In short: They have the
needs to involve them as well. This way of speaking already presupposes balls…. In this situation, even the disregard for the most benign social
the wrong divide, an original distinction between politics and passion, norms of civility can be sold off as a courageous Transgression and as
their fundamental heterogeneity: as if politics were something completely fighting for, say, the freedom of speech. In other words, transgression is
exterior to passion, and would then let some passion in when needed, and “sexy”, even if it simply means no longer greeting your neighbor, because,
in right dosages. One should rather start by dismantling the very idea that “Who invented these stupid rules and why should I obey them?” So,
passions are by definition “private” and apolitical (because personal). part of the new obscenity of power is still the much more traditional
No, passion is not a private thing! Even in the case of amorous passion, game of transgression, although the latter is often reduced to a pure and
it concerns at least two, and has consequences in a wider social space of completely empty form of transgression. The other part is a shameless and
those involved. open way in which those in power display their enjoyment and their faults,
Politics, different kind of politics, are different articulations of a which has indeed the effect of disarming a critique. Because there seems
communal passion, of how we live together and how we would like to live to be nothing behind it, nothing left to critically expose. But this does not
together. mean that this posture in unassailable. On the contrary, I actually think
To allow for political passion, or politics as passion, does not its fascinating spell has a relatively short breath. People soon realize that
mean to allow for people to freely engage in all kinds of hate speech as the only “balls” you need to be so blunt and outspoken are the “balls” that
expression of their feelings. First, feelings and passion are not exactly the position of power, including financial power, provides for you. There is
the same thing, passion is something much more systematic, it allows for no courage here. You do it because you can afford to do it. And this is in
organization, thinking, strategy… When I say “passion” I also don’t mean fact the essence of what is displayed in this case, repeating like a broken
frenzied gaze and saliva coming out of our mouth. record: Look at me, I can afford it, I can afford it, I have the power, I have
What is political passion? It is the experience of being concerned by the power... The ongoing display of all that you can “afford to do” because
ways in which our life in common (as societies) takes place, and where it you have the power, that is the sheer and self-serving display of power and
is going. We are all subjectively implied in this communal space, and it’s boasting about it, soon turns into a rather sickening spectacle, to which
only logical to be passionate about it. people respond accordingly.

Foucault remarked in one of his lecture series at the Collège

de France that there might at one point emerge a new type Dundee/Ljubljana/Prishtina, March 2019
of power-figure or sovereignty, that he refers to as obscene

452 Interview with Alenka Zupančič 453 Interview with Alenka Zupančič