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Catttt Posted 6 years ago
Grammar

Adherence to the letter of the law

1. Does "that seek to unsettle it at every turn" mean "that seek to dissatisfy it each time"?


2. Does "the subject might position the object rigidly in place by a perverse adherence to the letter of the law" mean "the subject might place inaccurate things (substitutes) in place of the desired object and with a superficial attention to only the surface of things"?


Context:

The ‘breast’ satisfies the infant’s hunger, thereby satisfying the instinct, but this external object also introduces a pleasurable sensation derived from the contact between mouth and breast. The infant wants to repeat this sensation, so the next time it feels hungry Freud says it hallucinates the breast. This experience is both pleasurable and frustrating, as the infant is attempting to achieve satisfaction by means of fantasy. The real breast is no longer enough to satisfy him, a gap having opened up between objects of need, which satisfy instincts, and objects of desire, around which the drives circulate, propelling the human subject to seek out objects which will always generate some degree of unpleasure due to the inherent gap between need and desire. But this unpleasure paradoxically satisfies the drives at an unconscious level. It is almost as if the ego were at the behest of agents beyond its control that seek to unsettle it at every turn. To stabilise the drives, the subject might position the object rigidly in place by a perverse adherence to the letter of the law, which aims to close the gap between need and desire, making them synonymous with one another. This is the root of sadism.

  

Top answer

catttt 1. Does "that seek to unsettle it at every turn" mean "that seek to dissatisfy it each time"? Something like that.

  • catttt 1.
  • Does "that seek to unsettle it at every turn" mean "that seek to dissatisfy it each time"?
  • Something like that.
  • catttt 2.
  • Does "the subject might position the object rigidly in place by a perverse adherence to the letter of the law" mean "the subject might place inaccurate things (substitutes) in place of the desired object and with a superficial attention to only the surface of things"?
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1 Answers
0
catttt1. Does "that seek to unsettle it at every turn" mean "that seek to dissatisfy it each time"?

Something like that.

catttt2. Does "the subject might position the object rigidly in place by a perverse adherence to the letter of the law" mean "the subject might place inaccurate things (substitutes) in place of the desired obje

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