Decline of the Paternal Function
Psychoanalysis and the Politics of the Family Pt. 2
This month in The Portal we will be focused on the psychoanalytic concept of “Excess” as the opposite and at the same time unity with “Lack”. We will be hosting guests Owen Cox of
for an Edge event on the “Politics of the Counter-Culture”, Thomas Hamelryck for a Thought Lab on “Christianity and Eroticism”, as well as a Real Talk with Paris Jayer on “Tantric Life”. You can get involved as a member, or also purchase individual tickets for The Edge and Thought Lab here: The Portal.In my second long-form discussion with
we attempted to work through another important element of his work at the intersection of psychoanalysis and the family, with a specific focus on the “decline of the paternal function”.Daniel Tutt is a philosopher with a focus on psychoanalytic theory and Marxist thought. He is the author of Psychoanalysis and the Politics of the Family: The Crisis of Initiation with the Palgrave Lacan Series and How to Read Like a Parasite: Why the Left Got High on Nietzsche with Repeater Books. He has taught philosophy at George Washington University, Marymount University and the Washington, DC jail and he is a Senior Research Fellow at the Global Center for Advanced Studies.
Throughout the video we discuss:
Tutt’s history as a political and philosophical thinker in the context of living in a neoliberal era (TINA: There Is No Alternative)
Coming out of religion and confronting the problem of subjectivity as the key catalyst to engaging with psychoanalytic work (but not as a subjectivist)
Subjectivity encounters the collective level in family; in contemporary politics the family is a “sunk agency”; socialist revolutions have not changed its form
Lacan’s “Name of the Father” = not just a name for a biological, empirical father but refers to generational memory (spans three-generations)
Law of psychoanalysis: speak freely whatever comes to your mind; what you learn is in the gap where people are able to speak freely and openly
Freud’s idea of patriarchy is dialectical; social forms adhere to a constant struggle with a transcendental authority; overcoming relations of dependency
Primordial group psychology: structured by an affective bond of love to a father (expressed in family, army, church, corporations); logic of libidinal harmony
Mass politics is not dead in our time but we face a stalemate; when we form smaller groups we should think of revolution in their ripple effects
In forming groups we must confront Oedipal dynamics in problems of overcoming transcendence function and relations of dependence
Key is understanding/working with aggressivity; a chosen community is site of overcoming something on the level of the subject of the unconscious
Lacan and possession of the phallus: important to resolution of one’s own freedom; it is about working beyond the pleasure principle for freedom
Marxist theory is generating knowledge of systemic totality in capitalism, and takes the standpoint of the most exploited
We have to work with the long-arc of history from the French Revolution when it comes to thinking egalitarian socialist politics on a universal level
What would be a concept of utopia that would antagonistic as opposed to a concept of utopia that dreams of a non-antagonistic state?
Class relations in capitalism contain a certain insidiousness, class needs to be abolished and transcended, particularly the way it exploits
Politics based around leisure time/otium (otium for the masses); many work whole lives disconnected from passion, don’t know what to do when they retire
Father mediates enjoyment/jouissance and specifically possibility of the mediation of enjoyment that is held down/in dependence
To find out more about Daniel Tutt’s work, see: