Topique
Revue freudienne
Editeur : L’Esprit du temps
N° 111 (septembre 2010) Violence ou persuasion
Fantasy, Discourse, Ideology – Transmission Beyond Propaganda
(Jean-Jacques Pinto)
Abstract
Propaganda is everywhere, not only in commercials or politics. It is aimed at faraway strangers as well as nearby friends and relations. Propaganda in fact relies on a certain type of psychic structure, one that is tuned to receive it and disseminate it. This structure is a result of an unconscious subjective identification which is therefore not open to change through either cognition, argumentation or reasoning.
Propaganda’s form and content are best explained by an unconscious subjectivity rather than by Pavlov’s theory. The social dimension of this subjectivity may be defined by what we refer to as our ‘Analysis of Subjective Logics’ (a legacy of Lacan’s theory of the Four Discourses, which is deficient in some respects).
We will first explore the various facets of the ‘Fantasy to Propagate’ by means of a word by word analysis, and will then go on to describe the connexions between Fantasy, Discourse and Ideology. We will show how a clever manipulator triggers an echo in the psyche of his victims, knitting together different and sometimes even contradictory fantasies in an unsteady synthesis he manages to maintain through patient repetition.
As for psychoanalysis, it is not only possible but also highly desirable to practise it in the absence of all propaganda : among analysts, on condition that the precept of authority be outwitted, and within each analysis, by undoing the analysand’s sensitivity to suggestion. Psychoanalysis indeed does not only address the individual’s symptoms and their unravelling, but also, more ambitiously, aims to heal civilization of its discontents. This would entitle us to speak in terms of a genuine form of ‘propaganda prevention.’
Subjectivity, Identification, Fantasy, Metaphor, Analysis of Subjective Logics, Sensitivity to Suggestion
(Translation made by Françoise CAPELLE)
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A.L.S (Analysis of Subjective Logics) is an analytical method concerned with the words (lexical items) of a spoken or written text. Drawing on psychoanalysis, it allows one, without resorting to the non-verbal (intonations, gestures, mimics, etc.), to get an idea of the personality of the author as well as of those one expects to persuade or to entice.