| Title | The Other Face of God |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | Lacan, Theological Structure, and the Accursed Remainder |
| Contributor | Levi R. Bryant (author) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.21983/P3.0010.1.05 |
| Landing page | https://punctumbooks.com/titles/speculations-iii/ |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ |
| Copyright | Bryant, Levi R. |
| Publisher | punctum books |
| Published on | 2012-09-03 |
| Long abstract | Reading the work of Christo-pher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett, one gets the impression that questions of religion and theology revolve around whether or not these beliefs are accurate represen-tations of the world. However, as Levi-Strauss shows in The Savage Mind, the difference between mythological thought and scientific thought is not to be understood in terms of whether it is an accurate representation of the world, but rather both are variations of a common structural order. As Levi-Strauss understands it, both myth and scientific thought are characterized by identical mental operations, but are merely applied to different materials. While not wishing to follow Levi-Strauss all the way in arguing that structures are ahistorical invariants of the human mind, in this paper I do wish to argue—drawing heavily on Lacanian psychoanalytic theory—that religion is a particular structure of thought and human social formations. From this I will draw some struc-tural or systemic consequences that follow from this structural organization. In particular, I wish to identify some structural features characteristic of a particular type of religious thought and social organization pertaining to monotheism in terms of the subject’s precarious relationship to language, masculine sexuation, and the role that objet a plays in our economy of desire. I will argue that these features are not accidental by-products of unique historical conditions, but rather properties of a particular structural organization. While these structures might themselves be products of particular socio-historical conditions, these features will be seen to be part and parcel of these particular forms of structural organization, such that where these structural organizations are present, these features will be present as well in much the same way that the hypotenuse of a right-triangle is a ratio of its relation to the other two sides. |
| Page range | pp. 69–98 |
| Print length | 30 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |