8 American Cultural Traits

Nevayda
Nevayda
VIP Member, 7760 posts 07/11/2012 08:40 AM
Eight American Cultural Traits
Last edited September, 2007.

America is different politically and economically from virtually all other existing
states. It can also be argued that Americans possess a unique cultural identity
which transcends all divisions within our own ethnic, racial, religious, political,
philosophical and other factions.

The reference to culture here is not made in the Hollywood-Madison Avenue popculture sense, but rather in the sense of character and personality traits that
Americans share as a group. More than simply an American exceptionalism, either,
the American culture referenced here is a product of our historical origin and
possibly even our genetics. We really are a nation of immigrants who, from colonial
times to the present day, took extraordinary personal risks and were willing to pay
the ultimate human price for liberty and for new opportunity. Such explorers,
voyagers, and adventurers shared a set of common personality traits no matter
what the circumstances of their previous life. Whether 17th century religious
refugees from Europe, roaming settlers in the American West, freed American slaves
making their way North, Mexican or Cuban immigrants in the present day, or any of
the thousand other stories in-between, successful new Americans have shared a set
of remarkably common qualities. Is it not evident that these common qualities
would be passed down to new generations by example or even by genes?
The premise put forth in this writing is that there is a set of common American traits
outside of our politico-economic structures, but eminently compatible with the
same, which make our nation more robust than it otherwise would be. This set of
cultural traits is nearly universal across an unbelievably diverse population, many of
which who would disagree with each other in almost every other respect. This set of
traits has been passed down, at least to some degree, to succeeding generations.

Our American cultural personality can be considered the high-octane fuel for the
capitalist and democratic engine powering our national being. Such an engine may
run satisfactorily on a lower octane fuel, but it is the high-test American culture that
allows us to really open up the throttle. Therefore, it is well worth identifying and
protecting this fuel from contamination or dilution so as to preserve the
performance of our engine. Let us examine eight American cultural traits that
should be common to and valued by us all.

1: Independence. Americans are individuals at heart. We are self-defined and selfmade. We do not take kindly to others foisting their views or their will on us and we
do not wish to be characterized by others as something we are not. From the
beginning, the "live free or die" attitude has been one fundamental basis of our
culture. This is easily understandable, given that most immigrants came to America
or moved to another section of America for the expressed purpose of escaping
some form of persecution or dominance by others. The trait of personal
independence has helped us avoid the sameness of thought and belief in our
citizens historically found elsewhere in the world and it has helped to protect our
political system from early demise. Even in our governmental structure, the
importance of local and state politics is an indication of the priority we place on
individual control and "home rule." In our local schools, in our local land use laws,
and in our unique local customs we have historically rejected a federal or national
influence. As a result, our individuality is allowed to blossom because we choose to
live in local areas compatible with our unique outlook.

Today the cultural trait of independence is largely intact, but it does need defense
against modern attacks. Moral relativism, "diversity" tolerance campaigns that often
lump people together by stereotype or race, and certain religious factions that
promote cookie-cutter thinking among their flock all pose a real danger to this
cultural footing. Very popular today, even in official capacities such as public
education, is the idea that one's personal identity should be tied to ancestry or race.
For example, schools promote "black history month" and in many cases foster the
idea that great accomplishments of a group's ancestors somehow make a member
of that group's future generation great too. This is counter to the American principal
that each individual be judged on his or her own accomplishments. A similar issue
can be found in current conservative religious organizations which dictate that
members must follow a particular political script. Individuality is again lost to a kind
of group-think. As new immigrants compose a lower and lower percentage of our
population, we must be wary to keep independence as a hallmark of our culture.
Without the new blood to infuse our culture with energy, we must hold high the
independent thinkers and iconoclasts in our history and in our daily lives so that our
children read the message loud and clear.

2: Hard work. Americans have never been afraid of hard work. From colonial era
farms to "Charlie Hustle" on modern little league baseball fields, Americans have
valued the idea that working intensely pays off in spades. That is true on an
individual basis and collectively. From the beginning, laziness was the ultimate
American sin punishable by hunger, low pay, personal failure and a deserved lack of
public esteem. Hard work, in fact, was its own reward. American farms and factories
were no place for slackers, nor were ships and railroads, nor was the military. When
the going got tough, the tough got going. Even collectively, we took pride in hard
work, with World War II being the ultimate historical example. GI Joe and Rosie the
Riveter both rolled up their sleeves, got their hands dirty, and got the job done in
record time. After the war, Americans continued on with the collective hard work
applied to highways, houses and babies. Personal wealth and satisfaction has
historically been tied in the American mind to hard work.

Today, though, hard workthe really tough stuffsometimes seems a quaint relic to
many in the current generation. Two dangerous counter-culture threads appear in
large part to be the cause. One, started early in the twentieth century, is related to
a sort of labor union "mentality" which can be summed up with the phrase: "what
have you done for me lately?" Instead of the idea that hard work now will eventually
pay off later, this growing cultural trend suggests that work should not even be
initiated until generous rewards are secured for the eventual effort. It is not limited
to the union workplace either, as white-collar workers, knowledge workers, and
even school children have latched on to the same idea. Young children are often
subjected to token reward systems in public school classrooms, which stifle the
intrinsic value of hard work The second thread appears to have started with parents
in the late 1950s, the 1960s and the 1970s who wanted to give their children the
things they didn't have and to spare their children the tough choices they felt that
they faced. Essentially, mothers and fathers who wanted to be friends with their
childreninstead of parentsspoiled a few generations. This cultural thread
continues to grow too. We must resist these two threats to the culture of hard work
that made America strong through two centuries.

3: Inventiveness. American inventiveness is the stuff of legend. From our earliest

history when necessity was the mother of invention, to the periods of depression
when citizens had to "make do", to periods of war when new technologies were
fabricated on the spot, to periods of boom when new money was reinvested to
make new discoveries, we have a solid history of advancement. The inventiveness
is not limited to technology either, as illustrated by our unique political system, our
medical leadership, even our distinctively American form of music: jazz. Historically

we have had a cultural proclivity of one-upmanship in our work and in our individual
lives. It is the American competition to make things better, stronger, faster and
cheaper. We want, we invent.

Fortunately, the fundamental American cultural trait for inventiveness appears to be

alive and well in modern times. We continue to invent new technologies, new
systems, and new means of human interaction at a pace that defies comprehension
by a single person. Perhaps the biggest danger to American ingenuity is the current
push to federalize the public school system. As federal and even state mandates
and standards push out local content in schools, future generations will not benefit
from an individualized education based on local sensibilities. Just as every shopping
mall in "Generica" starts to look the same, so will graduating students nationally.
Inventiveness, though, depends on being able to see circumstances in a different
light, based on different experience.

4. Personal ambition. Every immigrant to step into this country and every citizen
that ever picked up and moved to another area of our country did so based on
personal ambition. Our Constitution created the land of opportunity, our capitalist
system rewards personal ambition in that land. Our culture, naturally, has been
molded by the idea that Americans can and should fulfill their personal desires and
that they should pursue them vigorously. Individual happiness and the pursuit of
dreams is at the core of our being.

Today, personal ambition thrives in our culture, although it sometimes has a dark
side. Historically this cultural trait meant that individuals pursued their dreams with
every ounce of their energy but did so in an honest way. That is to say, it did not
cause them to seek fortunes, happiness or glory at the expense of others. Personal
ambition was a fire in the belly that drove individuals to work hard, to invent, and to
take risks, but not to exploit others in order to advance on their goals. We must take
back this cultural trait from those today who lie, cheat, steal, and abuse others in
the name of ambition. The dark side today is due partly to a business culture that
went awry, partly to a twisted popular culture emanating from Hollywood, sports
franshises and from urban street culture, and even partly from the 60's new left
counter-culture that left a mark on succeeding generations. Personal ambition,
coupled with ethical behavior, is fundamental to the American way.

5. Risk-taking. Americans have never been afraid to put it all on the line to reach a
goal. From the beginning we pledged our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to

get the job done. We revolted against powers stronger than ourselves, we moved
west into a great unknown, we even split ourselves briefly in two to resolve a single
terrible issue called slavery. Numerous popular stories of individuals taking huge
personal risk in order to pursue an idea, an invention or a business are legendary.
Risks taken by individuals and by our entire nation have been the precursor for each
following success. In modern times our risk-taking culture has continued unabated.
Today Americans continue to risk their lives, their fortunes and their honor for the
sake of ideas, for the sake of happiness and wealth, for the sake of love and
security. Our sons and daughters are stationed in harm's way all around the world
and our businessmen and women venture huge monetary sums across businesses
and borders. Even our national obsession with sports competition reflects a
fascination with risks as played out on a ball field. This cultural trait is in no danger.

6. Commitment. Perhaps more accurately described as stubbornness, Americans

have historically had a certain dedication or "stick-to-it" attitude for our enterprises
and ideas. This was a handy thing indeed for early settlers who faced overwhelming
odds, or for military commanders throughout our history who needed commitment
that bordered on insanity. George Washington in his leadership of a rag-tag army is
a good example. The so-called "captains of industry" in the late 1800s exhibited
commitment as did famous inventors such as Thomas Edison or the Wright brothers.
Such American stubbornness is of mythical proportions. Even today, could the
Cuban exile community in Florida be described as anything but stubborn?

This American cultural trait appears to be in good health today, even if some of our
modern stubbornness veers toward stupidity. Nonetheless, it is well worth
preserving this heritage.

7. Skepticism. For a country with a "show me" state, it should be no surprise that
Americans in general have always exhibited a healthy skepticism. While such an
attitude has sometimes thrown hurdles in front of progress, it has also helped to
keep progress honest. Americans laughed at the "horseless carriage" and other new
technologies, but such skepticism also forced inventors to consider the most
efficient means of turning a novelty into an imperative. American skepticism in the
realms of industry, finance, medicine, politics and more has been a useful force that
separates the wheat from the chaff. In the modern era, President Reagan's famous
"trust but verify" line is a perfect embodiment of this American cultural trait. We
appear to have retained our beneficial reservations about all that is new or
improved.

8. Honesty. For much of our history at least, a man's handshake was as good as his
word. Americans were intellectually honest, contractually honest, and personally
honest. We have passed down maxims and phrases such as "honesty is the best
policy", or "an honest day's pay for an honest day's work" for generations. The old
myth of George Washington and his cherry tree can be no better an example of our
historical obsession with honesty. For most of our history Americans expected and
generally got the truth, the fair shake, and the honorable way.

Sometime during the late twentieth century this cultural trait faltered. It is not fair,
of course, to paint all Americans as dishonest because of a few bad apples. A small
number of politicians or Wall Street traders going rotten does not mean America is
now a land of scheming demons. However, what has changed is the expectation
that honesty will prevail. It can be argued that Americans are now cynical to a
degree that it is hurting our progress. Honesty as a cultural trait is long gone; it is
replaced now by an unvarying sense of suspicion.

So, then, what of these eight cultural traits today? Is it really important that
independence, hard work, inventiveness, personal ambition, risk-taking,
commitment, skepticism, and honesty by modern Americans be reinforced and
reinvigorated? It could be argued that, due precisely to these cultural traits,
America has historically out produced other capitalistic and democratic states. The
American competitive drive, for example, can be explained as the combination of
independence, personal ambition, risk-taking and commitment. Our unique cultural
identity has helped propel our nation as the single biggest force for peace and
prosperity in the world. More than just our political system, our philosophy, or our
economic structures, our culture has made the American engine the most powerful
in history. We must ensure that this fuel remains pure.

rationalamerican.com ***

What Is Nature Versus Nurture?

By Kendra Cherry
Psychology Expert

SHARE

PIN

AdsCounseling PsychologyPositive PsychologyEnvironmentClinical PsychologySports

PsychologyChild PsychologyDevelopment

Sign Up for our Free Newsletters

About Today
Living Healthy
Psychology

SIGN UP
PSYCHOLOGY CATEGORIES

Psychology Dictionary: Terms from A to Z

Branches of Psychology
Psychology 101: The Basics
Careers in Psychology
Psychology Quizzes
Behavioral Psychology
Personality Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Cognitive Psychology
Social Psychology
History of Psychology
Psychology Research Methods
Psychotherapy
Academic Resources for Psychology Students
Psychology Basics
Psychology Theories
Psychology Experiments and Research Methods

Updated Articles and Resources

g-children-play.jpg - Bec Parsons / Getty Images
Which is more important in development: genetics or experience? The nature versus
nurture debate seeks to answer this important question. Bec Parsons / Getty
Images
The nature versus nurture debate is one of the oldest philosophical issues within
psychology. So what exactly is the nature versus nurture debate all about?

Nature refers to all of the genes and hereditary factors that influence who we are
from our physical appearance to our personality characteristics.

Nurture refers to all the environmental variables that impact who we are, including
our early childhood experiences, how we were raised, our social relationships, and
our surrounding culture.
Ads
Top Nonprofit Accounting
business-software.com/FreeReport
2015 Top 10 Nonprofit Accounting Software Rankings. Get Free Report.
Online Private Network
www.verifiedvpn.com
Access Secure Virtual Private Network From Anywhere W/ Free App!
HKTDC Research Platform
hktdc.com
Hub for the HK Market's Trends, Research Studies and Data Analysis!
Counseling Psychology
Positive Psychology
Environment
Clinical Psychology

Sports Psychology
Even today, different branches of psychology often take a one versus the other
approach. For example, biological psychology tends to stress the importance of
genetics and biological influences. Behaviorism, on the other hand, focuses on the
impact that the environment has on behavior.

A Closer Look at the Nature vs. Nurture Debate

Do genetic or environmental factors have a greater influence on your behavior? Do

inherited traits or life experiences play a greater role in shaping your personality?
The nature versus nurture debate is one of the oldest issues in psychology. The
debate centers on the relative contributions of genetic inheritance and
environmental factors to human development.

Some philosophers such as Plato and Descartes suggested that certain things are
inborn, or that they occur naturally regardless of environmental influences. Nativists
take the position that all or most behaviors and characteristics are the result of
inheritance.

Advocates of this point of view believe that all of our characteristics and behaviors
are the result of evolution.

Ads
Australian CleanTech 2014
www.auscleantech.com.au
Australian Cleantech Review, 2014 Detailed market analysis report
Genetic traits handed down from parents influence the individual differences that
make each person unique.

Other well-known thinkers such as John Locke believed in what is known as tabula
rasa, which suggests that the mind begins as a blank slate. According to this notion,
everything that we are and all of our knowledge is determined by our experience.

Empiricists take the position that all or most behaviors and characteristics result
from learning. Behaviorism is a good example of a theory rooted in empiricism. The
behaviorists believe that all actions and behaviors are the results of conditioning.
Theorists such as John B. Watson believed that people could be trained to do and
become anything, regardless of their genetic background.

Examples of Nature Versus Nurture

For example, when a person achieves tremendous academic success, did they do so
because they are genetically predisposed to be successful or is it a result of an
enriched environment? If a man abuses his wife and kids, is it because he was born
with violent tendencies or is it something he learned by observing his parents
behavior?

A few examples of biologically determined characteristics (nature) include certain

genetic diseases, eye color, hair color, and skin color. Other things like life
expectancy and height have a strong biological component, but they are also
influenced by environmental factors and lifestyle.

An example of a nativist theory within psychology is Chomsky's concept of a

language acquisition device (or LAD). According to this theory, all children are born
with an instinctive mental capacity that allows them to both learn and produce
language.

Some characteristics are tied to environmental influences. How a person behaves

can be linked to influences such as parenting styles and learned experiences. For
example, a child might learn through observation and reinforcement to say 'please'
and 'thank you.' Another child might learn to behave aggressively by observing
older children engage in violent behavior on the playground.

One example of an empiricist theory within psychology is Albert Bandura's social

learning theory. According to the theory, people learn by observing the behavior of
others. In his famous Bobo doll experiment, Bandura demonstrated that children

could learn aggressive behaviors simply by observing another person acting

aggressively.

How Nature and Nurture Interact

What researchers do know is that the interaction between heredity and environment
is often the most important factor of all. Kevin Davies of PBS's Nova described one
fascinating example of this phenomenon.

Perfect pitch is the ability to detect the pitch of a musical tone without any
reference. Researchers have found that this ability tends to run in families and
believe that it might be tied to a single gene. However, they've also discovered that
possessing the gene alone is not enough to develop this ability. Instead, musical
training during early childhood is necessary to allow this inherited ability to manifest
itself.

Height is another example of a trait that is influenced the interaction of nature and
nurture. A child might come from a family where everyone is tall, and he may have
inherited these genes for height. However, if he grows up in a deprived environment
where he does not receive proper nourishment, he might never attain the height he
might have he had grown up in a healthier environment.

Contemporary Views of Nature Versus Nurture

Throughout the history of psychology, however, this debate has continued to stir up
controversy. Eugenics, for example, was a movement heavily influenced by the
nativist approach. Psychologist Francis Galton, a cousin of the naturalist Charles
Darwin, coined both the terms nature versus nurture and eugenics, and believed
that intelligence was the result of genetics. Galton believed that intelligent
individuals should be encouraged to marry and have many children, while less
intelligent individuals should be discouraged from reproducing.

Today, the majority of experts believe that both nature and nurture influence
behavior and development. However, the issue still rages on in many areas such as

in the debate on the origins of homosexuality and influences on intelligence. While

few people take the extreme nativist or radical empiricist approach, researchers and
experts still debate the degree to which biology and environment influence
behavior.

Increasingly, people are beginning to realize that asking how much heredity or
environment influence a particular trait is not the right approach. The reality is that
there is not simple way to disentangle the multitude of forces that exist. These
influences include genetic factors that interact with one another, environmental
factors that interact such as social experiences and overall culture, as well as how
both hereditary and environmental influences intermingle. Instead, many
researchers today are interested in seeing how genes modulate environmental
influences and vice versa.

More Psychology Definitions: The Psychology Dictionary

Continuity and Discontinuity in Developmental Psychology

theories of developmentGetty Images

We can all agree that from birth to death, people change along several parallel
pathways, including movement, cognition, and social skills and emotion. But how
exactly do these changes take place? Are they sudden and abrupt or gradual? This

article explains how developmental psychologists explore differences between

people of certain ages based on how gradually or abruptly those differences seem
to emerge.
The Continuity Approach
If you have spent any significant amounts of time with young children, there are
some aspects of their behavior that seem to change so gradually that you hardly
notice. We can compare these aspects of development to the growth of a mighty
oak from its beginnings as a little acorn.For example, young parents are unlikely to
notice the gradual weight gain of the young infant. From day to day, the parents will
respond to lifting the growing child by becoming stronger themselves, so they
hardly notice any change in weight. What makes this truly astonishing is that the
child is growing at a remarkable rate, especially during the first year of life.
According to McCall (1979), if a human child continued his or her growth rate during
the first year of life over the next nine years as well, the child at age 10 years would
be about the size of a jumbo jet!Another gradual change that seems to sneak up on
parents is the child's increasing vocabulary. Once children start speaking, their
vocabularies begin to increase on a daily basis. The typical 18-month-old child
might have between 10 and 50 words, but by the time children reach kindergarten
age, they have a very mature sounding vocabulary of about 2000 words. Because
these are the types of words even adults use most frequently (as opposed to the
types of words we learn in high school or college, like hippocampus), you can have a
rather sophisticated conversation with a 5-year-old.Children's social skills might also
proceed in a very gradual manner. As they are exposed to more diverse social
experiences when moving from the home to perhaps a daycare provider to
preschool to school, the child's social skills must keep pace. Once in awhile,
however, we observe rather dramatic changes in a child's behavior in which a
behavior that wasn't there the day before now appears. This type of observation has
led to a different way of viewing some aspects of development.
Discontinuity
Discontinuous development occurs when differences between individuals of one age
and either previous or subsequent ages appear rather abruptly rather than
gradually. Unlike the acorn to oak analogy we made for continuous development, we
might think of discontinuous development as being like a caterpillar changing into a
butterfly.We tend to see discontinuity when children hit "milestones," such as
walking alone and speaking a first word. The day before, these behaviors are
absent, but they seem to emerge in some cases with little warning.In some cases,
we are able to identify biological correlates of some abrupt developmental changes.
For example, in both infant rhesus monkeys and humans, development in the frontal
lobes is strongly predictive of the achievement of object permanence. Object
permanence occurs at about the same stage of development in both species, and is
demonstrated when the infant searches for an object once it is removed from sight.

At a previous stage of development, objects for infants are literally "out of sight
out of mind."Some developmental theories, such as Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson,
propose stage theories of development that are largely discontinuous. According to
these theories, behavior in one stage is qualitatively different than behavior in the
previous or next stages, and movement from one stage to the next can occur rather
suddenly.
Which Perspective Is "Correct?"
As is so often the case in good science, psychological scientists continue to debate
the merits of looking at development as being either a continuous or discontinuous
process. Good arguments can be made for the usefulness of both perspectives, and
one perspective might have an advantage over the other when a particular type of
developmental change is being examined. So it's safe to say that we don't have to
pick sides in this discussion unless one appeals more to us than the other.
Good science results from debate. Instead of worrying about achieving the "right
answer," looking at a phenomenon like human development from multiple
perspectives is more likely to provide insight and accuracy. Both continuous and
discontinuous approaches to development have their strengths in helping us
understand the differences between people of different ages.

Activity versus passivity - Verhaeghe, Paul

Boston, Harvard University, 28 Oct. 99

New York, "Aprs Coup", 6 Nov. 99.

Activity versus passivity: beyond the question of gender.

It is well-known that Freuds first steps in the field of hysteria brought him the
discovery of traumatism and the seduction by the father. Right from the start, the
question of gender and the relationship between man and woman is also one of his
main worries, with a special accent on femininity. During the development of his
work, he will produce several answers, but they will never be very satisfying.
Different as they may be, there is one constancy in it. Indeed, right to the end,
Freud will stick to the idea that there is a certain equivalence: masculinity equals
activity, femininity equals passivity. E.g. the libido for him is active-masculine,

meaning: phallic. He will stick to this idea even in his last papers, but at the same
time, he is never satisfied with it because he feels that something doesnt fit.

My thesis can be summarised in three points:

the primary opposition is the one between activity and passivity;

the opposition between man and woman is only one possible implementation of this
primary opposition, the main one being the opposition between the subject and its
own body;
it is this primary opposition that grounds the statement "there is no sexual
relationship"
In order to demonstrate my thesis, I will start with Freuds theory and continue with
Lacans elaboration that Lacan gave to it.

Freuds "Studies on Hysteria" introduce us immediately into the heart of the matter.
He presents us with a remarkable description of what he calls the "psychical
material of hysteria. Based on his clinical experience, he concludes that this
material is arranged around what he considers "the nucleus in which the traumatic
factor had culminated or the pathogenic idea has founded its purest manifestation"
(SEII, 288). The aim of his hypnocathartic technique is to bring this nucleus back
into consciousness and "abreact" it, but time and again, this fails. Freud has to
conclude that the essential characteristic of this nucleus is precisely the fact that it
can never be put into words, because the defence is such that the words for it are
lacking forever (GW 1, 291-294). He assumes that the basic aetiology of hysteria
goes back to a primary experience of anxiety that arises in the confrontation with
something for which the psyche does not have an appropriate answer and leaves us
with a lack in this respect. Quote: "This first stage of hysteria may be described as
"fright hysteria"; its primary symptom is the manifestation of fright accompanied by
a gap in the psyche" (Manuscript K, SEI, p.228).

So, right from the start, we can already come to a kind of conclusion. This
traumatic, fright -inducing nucleus that cannot be put into words, ex sists outside
the Symbolic and must necessarily belong to the Real. As a consequence, it can
only be approached by sideways, by its borders, meaning the formations of the
Unconscious, and that is precisely what Freud has done.

At the end of 1895, he sends a manuscript to Fliess in which we find a very good
summary of his ideas at that time. Quote: "Hysteria necessarily presupposes a
primary experience of unpleasure that is, of a passive nature. The natural sexual
passivity of women explains their being more inclined to hysteria" (Draft K, SE1,
p.228). We need to deconstruct this quote.

Firstly, we have hysteria and passivity. This idea is a essential: the primal
experience leading to hysteria is a passive one against which defence is only
possible in a further development. Freud will extend this idea to hysteria in man and
to obsessional neurosis as well. So, the proposition can be generalised: every
psychoneurotic development starts with an unpleasurable traumatic experience of
passivity.

Secondly, we have passivity and femininity, "the natural sexual passivity of

women". Freud is aware of the fact that something is wrong with this idea, and he
will try to reformulate it several times during the later development of his work, but
he will never find a satisfactory answer. Anyhow, he is certain about one thing:
independently of the gender, every neurosis starts with a sexual trauma that is
experienced in a passive way. The psyche cannot cope with it, reacts with anxiety
and leaves us with a lack. From a lacanian point of view, this trauma can be
understood as the lack of the Other, that is, that part of the Real that is excluded
from the Symbolic.

Of course, this idea of the Other is something that we add , but it can be argued
from Freuds theory as well. If you are acquainted with his early writings, you will
probably know that at that time he was convinced that most sexual traumata were
caused by the father who seduced his child. Later on, he had to revoke this idea, but
it is a mistake to think that it disappeared altogether from his work. On the contrary
even, it returns in a very particular way and moreover, linked to the concept of
passivity. In his "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality", Freud already mentions
two forms of jouissance and these two forms can be interpreted with the activitypassivity polarity. The passive form refers to what the child has to undergo from the
mother. Initially, every child is reduced to the passive object of the jouissance of the
mother, she is the active party of the two. The child itself wants to leave this
passive position and exchange it for the active one, meaning the phallic position.
Freud discovers this transition from passive to active firstly in the oral field, from
being suckled to active sucking (GW V, p.82-84), but later on, he will recognise this
transition in every drive. As a result, he will consider this transition as one of the
basic vicissitudes of the drive as such, meaning that there is always an active and a
passive version to it (SE 14, p.126). Lacan will retake this idea even more generally

by recognizing two versions of each partial drive: to see and to make oneself seen,
to hear, and to make oneself heard, to eat and to make oneself gobbled up etc.
(sem.XI, Les quatre concepts, p.177 ff.; English version, The four fundamental etc.,
p.195 ff).

Twenty years later, when Freud is trying to elaborate the feminine version of the
oedipal complex, he returns to his original seduction theory, albeit with an
important correction. Indeed, the study of the female Oedipus complex
demonstrates that it is the mother, and not the father, who seduces the child, and
this simply because of her way of handling the childs body during the mothering.
The pampering process reduces the child to her object of jouissance, and it is first of
all the mother who enjoys this process (GW. XIV, 351 en GW XV, 128-29).
Considered in this way, the child functions as a plug, it fills the lack of the Other and
provides this Other with jouissance. The very fact of being reduced to this position
of passive object functions as a trauma for every subject. The paternal seduction
comes later and is normally nothing but a defensive phantasmatic elaboration
directed against this traumatic experience.

Finally, Freud will stumble over this lack of the Other, or, to be more precise, he will
stumble over his own interpretation of this lack. Indeed, for Freud, every lack has to
be interpreted in terms of castration, with its two different expressions depending
on the gender. For a masculine subject, it is castration anxiety as such, for a female
subject, it is the penis envy. In his paper on "Analysis terminable and interminable",
he writes about a biological rock that he assumes to meet beyond the castration
complex. For him, this rock puts an end to all the therapeutical hope concerning the
castration complex. As this means the impossible end of analysis, the reader usually
stops his lecture of this paper at that point, but it is worthwhile to continue ones
reading (GW XVI, 96-99). As a matter of fact, Freud discusses the idea of a general
principle that finds a different expression depending on the gender in which it
appears. To be sure, this principle concerns castration, but right from the start,
Freud remarks that it expresses something else as well, I quote: "()from the start,
repudiation of femininity would have been the correct description of this remarkable
feature in the psychical life of human beings." (SE23, p.250). And in the very last
paragraph of the paper, we read: "The repudiation of femininity can be nothing else
than a biological fact, a part of the great riddle of sex." (SE 23, 252). Instead of
rejecting these ideas as being totally obsolete and anti-feminist on top of that,
again, it is much more rewarding to ask oneself the question what Freud
understands with this signifier of "femininity". If one studies the last pages of his
paper, the answer is quite clear: femininity equals passivity, especially passivity
towards an Other.

If one thinks this through, then this theory is not very surprising. The idea that a
child has to liberate itself from the original symbiosis with his mother, that it has to
fight for its autonomy, these ideas are already present in what I consider to be the
Anglo-Saxon psychoanalytical psychology. The lacanian theory, at least in my
interpretation, provides us with a different answer that will permit us to go beyond
this "two bodies-psychology".

This part of the lacanian theory is to be found in what I consider to be the second
Lacan, the one of the Real and the Jouissance. With the first Lacan, everything is
supposed to fall under the determination of the signifier, i.e. the Symbolic Order.
This overdetermination enables us to make predictions (cfr the seminar on the
Purloined Letter) and to practice analysis. Most of you are probably familiar with the
keywords from that period: "parole vide, parole pleine, la ralisation symbolique"
(full speech, empty speech, the symbolic realisation) etc. Well, in the first chapter of
seminar eleven, Lacan introduces his audience to the idea of causality as something
that lies outside this determinism. Ultimately, this cause is to be considered as undetermined, not subjected to and even in opposition with the deterministic laws of
the symbolic order. In the further lessons of seminar eleven, this in determination
will be interpreted as the traumatic Real, that is to say, that part of the drive that
resists to the process of symbolisation and that operates in a traumatic way for the
subject. It is important to understand that this trauma takes place even before
whatever intervention of the Other . Much later, in his last seminars, Lacan will talk
about the identification with the real part of the symptom and this will enable him to
open a new theory on the (in-)terminability of an analysis this is his theory on the
"sinthomme".

So, from seminar XI onwards, the body takes a completely different place. Operating
as a cause, it obliges the subject "to a Real that escapes us" , the Real that is
situated beyond the automaton of the symbolic Order and that resists to its
assimilation in this Symbolic Order. Considered from this point of view, the idea of
causality implies the idea of a failure, of something that did not succeed, thereby
leaving the place open for something else. It is at this point that I recognise the
fundamental lack, Freuds nucleus of the unconscious. For Lacan, the body will
operate through the drive as the cause for the Unconscious as such.

It is important to understand that this new theory on causality is not introduced in

an isolated way, on the contrary even. This new theory enables Lacan to provide the
Unconscious with a new status, and this status is grounded on what happens on the

level of the subject and its body. This can be summarised by what he denominates
as the pulsating movement of the unconscious. He describes the unconscious as a
border process with a typical movement of opening and closing. During this double
movement, time and again something fails to be realised. That is the reason why
Lacan considers both the subject and the unconscious to be pre-ontological. Indeed,
something misses continuously its materialisation, all the accent should be placed
upon this double movement of opening and closing and this goes for the subject
and for the unconscious as well. This has a very important consequence: the aim of
the treatment can not be considered any more in terms of "symbolic realisation",
because that is precisely impossible from a structural point of view. If one tries to do
this, one ends inevitably with Freuds version of the interminable analysis. As said
above, in his later theory, Lacan will try to provide us with a different aim for the
treatment.

So, with this new theory on causality, it is the Real that operates in a causal way
and the determinism of the Symbolic is not absolute anymore. The question is: what
Real are we talking about? Or, to be more specific: which lack are we talking about,
because the Real always implies a lack in the Symbolic. In Lacans preceding theory,
the accent was on desire and the lack of the Other to which the subject tried to
produce an answer. Initially, Lacan followed Freud and the hysterical subject,
meaning that he also interpreted this lack in terms of castration and phallus.

His new theory starts when he introduces the Real of the body as the basic
causality. We have to be even more specific: it is not so much the body he is
referring to, no, he is talking about the organism and the organs. Indeed, in his
lesson of the 27th of May 1964, Lacan surprises his audience by introducing them to
another lack, another loss. This lack precedes the well-known lack in the chain of
signifiers, the one that determines the desire of the subject in the dialectical
exchange between mother and child. The least that can be said about this new lack
is that it is indeed a very fundamental one, because it concerns the loss of the
eternal life. Paradoxically enough, this lack is installed at the very moment of the
conception, that is, at the moment of the birth of a sexually differentiated life form.
In order to explain this unexplainable fact, Lacan provides his audience with a myth,
that is, he tells them a story about something that flies away at the moment of
birth, a kind of lamella. This thing lost forever is object (a) in its purest form as life
instinct. For Lacan, the loss of eternal life goes back to a biological fact, and in this
way, he will reconsider Freuds biological rock. In opposition to Freud, he will
interpret this biological fact not so much as a stumbling rock, but as something that
permits the subject to escape from the all embracing determinism (of the Symbolic).

Lacans explanation of the lamella myth runs as follows. Organisms that reproduce
themselves in a non-sexual way bacterias, viruses, prions, and today clones as
well can in principle live forever, because their reproduction comes down to a
replication. In these cases, death is purely accidental and not inevitable as such.
This is not the case with sexually differentiated organisms, because these life forms
have to die. The cell division that characterises these sexual life forms the
meiosis causes not only the loss of half of the genetic material, it excludes these
life forms from the eternal life as well. Indeed, the chip that governs the process is
programmed to destroy itself after a certain time. In contemporary biology, this is
coined as the apoptosis. It is interesting to note the analogies with Freuds
commentary on the Weissmans theory in "Beyond the pleasure principle".

The non-sexual life form contains the possibility of eternal life. Sexual reproduction,
on the other hand, implies automatically the death of the individual. The story does
not end there, on the contrary. In one way or another, each organism tries to escape
from this loss, and yearns to return to the situation from before the sexual
differentiation. Freud had already recognised this tendency to return to a previous
state of being as a basic characteristic of the drive. By the way, in this respect, we
are still talking about the drive, meaning before any social determination of gender
and before any division in partial drives. We will return to this with Freuds idea of
life and death drive, albeit that we will have to reinterpret his denominations.

It is important to acknowledge the fact that the reaction to this primordial loss
that is, the defensive elaboration and the attempt to return to the previous state
that this reaction takes place on the symbolico-imaginary scene, meaning the scene
where the gender identity will be acquired. Because of the specifics of the oedipal
structure, this gender identity comes down to a phallic one. This means that the
attempt to return that is, the answer to the primordial lack, the lack in the Real
will be produced on the level of the second lack, the lack in the Symbolic. Hence the
fact that this fundamental lack on the level of the organism is reinterpreted as a
phallic lack in the relation between subject and Other this is first of all the case in
hysteria and in neurosis in general, which explains Freuds obstinate clinging to this
phallic interpretation.

During this reinterpretation, object (a) becomes associated to the borders of the
body, the orifices through which the secondary losses take place: mouth, anus, eye,
ear and genitals. This phallic interpretation of the object (a) also implies the fact
that the lack and original loss are introduced into the relation between child and
first Other, the mother, and from there onwards, in the relationship between man
and woman. The Freudian Oedipal complex can very well be summarised like that.

From that moment onwards, the drive is turned into partial drives and presents
always a fusion between life and death drive.

Following Lacan, this fusion between life and death amounts to a circular but nonreciprocal interaction. The loss at the level of the Real transforms individual life into
one elongated attempt to return to the preceding eternal life. From a structural
point of view, this leaves us with two elements, of whom one operates as a force of
attraction, whilst the other wants to return and to move forward at the same time.
This is the Philia and Neikos to which Freud refers (GW XVI, 92). Their interaction is
each time staged on a different level, which installs and endorses the fact that there
is no relationship between them the two borders can never meet. As early as
1948, Lacan had already written that in mankind, there is a "dhiscence", a cleft in
the very core of the organism, a primordial discordance (Ecrits, 96). The final result
of this primordial cleft is the fact there is no sexual relationship.

The last scene of the interaction concerns the advent of the subject, the opening
and closing movement takes place through the processes of separation and
alienation. Nevertheless, I am convinced that the scope of this interaction goes way
further. I will present you with an overview of this range.

Firstly, we have the already mentioned advent of the living at the moment of birth.
The advent of sexually differentiated lifeforms implies the loss of the eternal life.
This loss is summarised by Lacan in his concept of the object (a), meaning the pure
loss of the lifeinstinct. This eternal life, the Zo of the classical Greek, functions as a
force of attraction for the individual life, the Bios, that tries to return. The price to
pay for this return is the loss of this individual life as such, and this explains the
other tendency, the one that flees from it in the opposite direction. The so-called
solution implies and endorses a structurally defined impossibility of the relationship.
Indeed, the bios tries to join the zo through sexual reproduction, thus entailing a
necessary failure and even repeating and endorsing the original loss. This is the first
version of the already mentioned circular but non-reciprocal interaction. From this
moment onwards, life and death drive are fused. From the above, it is clear that the
idea of life and death has to be applied in a balanced way. The death of the
individual implies eternal life, the loss of eternal life implies a limited individual life
life and death have a different meaning, depending on the point of view that is
taken. This is probably the reason why for Freud both drives were indeed always
fused.

Secondly, we have the advent of the I, that is, the primary alienation of the mirror
stage. The living being acquires a first mastery, a first identity because of the
unified image of his body through the master signifier, the "I". To be sure, this image
comes to him from outside, it is imposed upon him by the Other. This "I" will never
cease to try to join its body, that is, the being of its body, but then again, the price
to pay for this joining is the disappearance of this "I" hence the tendency to flee
in the other direction as well. Finally, this solution will provide the "I" only with the
body of the Other, thus endorsing the loss of its being.

Thirdly, we have the advent of the subject. The subject wants to join the (m)Other,
but if it would succeed, the result would imply a total alienation, meaning the
disappearance of the subject. Hence the other tendency for separation. Again, this
solution implies a structurally impossible relationship, because the attempt of the
subject to join the Other, must necessarily pass through the signifier, thus repeating
and endorsing the original division of this subject.

Thus considered, the subject enters the scene as the last implementation of this
structure and contains all the previous ones as well. Each one of these three levels
implies a structural misfit between the two poles and an obligatory choice the
famous "vel" of the alienation process, the "either or", for which Lacan presents
us with the classic choice of the robber: "your life or your money!". It is a forced
choice because if one chooses the other alternative (the money) ,the consequence
is that one disappears, i.e. you lose your life. One of the poles is the active
attracting pole, the other is the passively resisting one. These ideas of passivity and
activity should not be interpreted in terms of hyperactivity versus immobility.
Indeed, sometimes a lot of activity is necessary if one wants to reach a passive
position, and the active pole may very well wait passively for the other party to join
him Freud himself said already that the death drive operates in total silence. The
opposition between activity and passivity amounts to a structural inequality
between a forever lost totality on the one hand and its product on the other hand, in
which the lost totality tries to recapture, to regain its product, thereby reducing it to
a passive object of its jouissance.

This serial of advents demonstrates that the original cleft between the psyche and
the Real of the organism will be repeated in the cleft between the subject and its
symbolico-imaginary body, meaning his gender identity body.

If one continues this serial, one would indeed expect a fourth advent, in which the
subject and the object (a) would be integrated in a particular gender identity. This is
what the Oedipus complex does, in its own particular way, that is: by interpreting
the original loss in terms of castration. The result is that the oedipal structure
inaugurates a gender differentiation which is not a genuine one, because it is solely
based on the presence of absence of the phallus. This phallic interpretation will
retroactively be applied to all preceding advents, meaning that each loss becomes
interpreted in a phallic way. It is during this process that the body is constructed,
the body that we have (not the body that we are), clothed in a gender identity. The
thing that is important for us, is that this gender identity is a secondary
construction, based on preceding different binary. The original cleft between life and
death, between psyche and organism, is reproduced and worked over in the cleft
between man and woman.

Thus considered, the cleft between body and Other, between being and sense, is
reproduced in the cleft between woman and man. Moreover, this repetition
produces the same effect: whatever the efforts of the subject to join his body by
way of the Other of language, he will never succeed, because the cleft is precisely
due to this Other of language. Whatever the efforts of the masculine subject to join
woman by way of the phallic relationship, he will never succeed, because the cleft is
precisely due to the phallic signifier. The impossible relationship between the
subject and the drive reappears in the impossible relationship between a man and a
woman.

Beyond this homologous structure that never stops to be never written in order to
attain an ever-impossible return, we meet with the beyond of the Freudian pleasure
principle. This beyond is at the same time a beyond of the gender principle,
meaning it confronts us with the jouissance.

Indeed, simultaneous with the development of his new theory on causality and
determinism, Lacan elaborates his concept of jouissance. Of course, the idea as
such is older, but it will receive a whole new meaning. To be more specific: from
seminar XI onwards, Lacan will assign the jouissance to the body, that is, to the
body as an organism. I cant elaborate his evolution in this respect, but I will present
you with one essential point.

In my reading, the dichotomy between the phallic jouissance and the jouissance of
the body does not cover the binary between male and female. One could have had

this impression from a certain reading of the "Encore" seminar, in particular the
chapter on the "other jouissance"). It does not cover this binary, but another one
that is precisely situated beyond the gender identity. By way of conclusion, Id like
to give you an idea of this binary.

Already in his paper on "Subversion du sujet et dialectique du dsir", Lacan stated

that the phallic jouissance operates as a defensive device on this other jouissance, I
quote: "Le plaisir marque la fin de la jouissance" (Pleasure marks the end of
jouissance). Later on, he wiil say that this phallic jouissance operates as an
obstacle: "Phallic jouissance is the obstacle owing to which man does not come to
enjoy womans body, precisely because what he enjoys is the jouissance of the
organ" (Lacan, On Feminine Sexuality, p.7) ("la jouissance phallique est lobstacle
par quoi lhomme narrive pas jouir du corps de la femme, prcisment parce que
ce dont il jouit, cest de la jouissance de lorgane", Sm. XX, 13). This aspect of
lacanian theory suggested to a number of postlacanians that one should try to
bypass this phallic obstacle in order to reach this dreamt-of other jouissance. Well,
in sofar that this is possible, one will not meet with a relationship that would be
more sexual than the previous one, on the contrary.

In this region beyond the phallic, we do not meet with the searched-for and dreamtof sexual relationship between the man and the woman. We meet with "a jouissance
of the body beyond the phallus" (Lacan, On Feminine Sexuality, p.74; "une
jouissance du corps au-del du phallus, sm.XX, 69). In my interpretation, this
means that the relationship between man and woman beyond the phallus is the
very same one as the relationship between the subject and the Real of its body. This
allows me to rephrase the already quoted lacanian statement as follows: : "Phallic
jouissance is the obstacle owing to which the subject does not come to enjoy his
own body as real, precisely because what he enjoys is the jouissance of the
phallus".

Well, whenever this other jouissance of the body will pop up, the subject will always
react in the same way, that is, with anxiety. Indeed, this jouissance of the body is
situated beyond the Symbolic, meaning that it implies necessarily the
disappearance, the death of the subject. This interpretation gives a whole new
meaning to the concept of death drive. Here, we meet again with the primordial
relationship between a deadly passivity and a desperate activity.

This brings me to the clinical applications. What are the clinical manifestations of
this jouissance coming from the beyond? We know at least two of them: the
Freudian clinic of the traumatic neurosis and the lacanian clinic of the psychosis. In
case of psychosis, the subject is confronted directly to an Other without the
protection of the Symbolic. Here, we meet with the Other who enjoys the subject in
a terrifying way, hence the classic idea of the psychotic to be persecuted. In case of
traumatic neurosis, the subject is always in one way or another confronted with a
Real that mortifies him, that leaves him without any answer . In this case, the
necessary signifiers are lacking for the subject, and clinical practice demonstrates
that in such circumstances, it is the body that takes the relief (just think of the
dissociation and the ubiquitous psychosomatic symptoms

Hence, in these two paradigmatic cases, this jouissance of the organism can be
understood in another way than the dreamt-of feminine other jouissance of the
Encore-seminar. It does not bring us any closer to the hoped-for relationship
between the man and the woman between the phallus and the body no, it has
everything to do with the opposition between activity and passivity, which first of all
finds its expression in the relationship between the subject and the drive, that is,
the Real of the body. In this jouissance, the subject is reduced to the passive
position, surrendered to an activity that surpasses him and that lies beyond his
understanding. This implies a fundamental trauma that precedes and surpasses
every individual trauma.

In my opinion, if we want to elaborate a new theory on gender, it will be this

opposition that should serve as a starting-point.