Ich bin der Ansicht, dass Lacans Theorie der vier Diskurse jeder Typologie oder Charakterologie überlegen ist. Und zwar gerade deshalb, weil eine Diskursart niemals ganz in einem Individuum verkörpert ist, sondern Diskurse immer
zwischen Individuen stattfinden.
Die vier Diskurse sind der Diskurs des Herren (Master), der Diskurs der Universität, der Diskurs des Hysterikers und der Diskurs des Analytikers (Analyst).
Jeder Diskurs besteht aus vier Positionen. Die Position links oben bezeichnet die jeweilige Senderinstanz, die Position rechts oben die Empfängerinstanz, die Position rechts unten bezeichnet die Instanz, die die Zeichenproduktion bestimmt, und die Position links unten bezeichnet die unbewusste Wahrheit des Diskurses. Die Zeichen, die die Positionen besetzen, sind S1 (Autorität), S2 (Wissen), $ (das Subjekt) und a (Begehren). Im Diskurs des Herren wendet sich die Autorität an ein bestehendes Wissen, um es abzufragen. Die Autorität bezweckt damit, das Begehren des anderen für sich zu wecken, was sie stärkt. Die unbewusste Wahrheit des Diskurses des Herren ist das gebarrte Subjekt: der Kaiser ist nackt. Im Diskurs der Universität ist es die Wissenspraxis selbst, die sich an das Begehren wendet. Das Subjekt soll kreativ werden und sich selbst erschaffen, aber nach den Maßgaben des Wissens. Die unbewusste Wahrheit des Diskurses der Universität ist Autorität: Die Universität verlangt zwar Kreativität im Entdecken des eigenen Begehrens und in der Konstruktion der eigenen Subjektivität, aber immer im Rahmen vorgegebener Normen. Das Produktivitätsideal der Universität ist nicht einfach freie Entfaltung, sondern bereits das Ergebnis irgendeiner verleugneten autoritären Vorgabe (meistens von außen, im Kapitalismus z.B. durch die Anforderungen der Wirtschaft und des Marktes). Im Diskurs des Hysterikers ist es das Subjekt, dass sich an eine Autorität wendet. Jedes Subjekt ist gebarrt, es
sucht nach seiner unmöglichen Vervollständigung, und mit dieser unmöglichen , exzessiven Forderung wendet es sich an die Autorität. Der Hysteriker fordert, dass "fiat iustitia et pereat mundus" (Kant). Sein Diskurs zielt auf die Produktion absoluten Wissens (so wie die sokratische Dialektik des Fragens). Seine unbewusste Wahrheit ist die Partikularität seines eigenen Begehrens. Im Diskurs des Analytikers ist es genau dieses Begehren, das sich direkt an das Subjekt wendet. Es will vom Subjekt nichts weiter, als dass dieses sich artikuliert, und zwingt das Subjekt dazu, seine eigene(n) Autorität(en) zu produzieren. Im Grunde könnte man sagen, dass der Diskurs des Analytikers jeden anderen Diskurs hysterisiert. Die unbewusste Wahrheit des Analytikers ist, dass dabei
tatsächlich Wissen entsteht.
Hier ist eine gute Einführung in Lacans Diskurstheorie, am Beispiel verschiedener Schüler-Lehrer-Verhältnisse.
The Discourse of the Master
Here the teacher is situated as the master and producer of knowledge as power, demanding the recognition of his autonomy at the expense of the perversity of students' desire. (Foucault, 1970 & 1980) The students are expected to "reproduce" the discourse of the Master. As such, there is complete disregard for students who fail to adulate the Master or his approach to the text. Commonly, the Master will be found in the staffroom complaining about the way students seem to be getting more and more stupid, the general fall in standards and the unsuitability of some students in particular (who should have become waged labour at age fifteen). The educational process, according to a Master, involves an initiation through pain that thereby "civilises" the desire of students who would otherwise remain feral. The Master takes it upon himself to rescue "educated pleasures" from "brute gratifications". The mark of a civilised student is that she appreciates the Master and the body of knowledge which belongs to him and offers elevated pleasure at the expense of dedication. The inscribing process is thus legitimised. Under a "Society of Discourse" or "commentary" based regime (where Masters are particularly at home), education is seen as the necessary effect of students' painful or happy interaction with the text as "in itself it really is". (cf. Foucault, 1970) Masters, especially when operating in Societies of Discourse, typically place great emphasis on their own expertise and argue from their own experience as students to general principles for education. Even the requirements of the academy - particularly "modern" academies that are now attempting to prescribe "progressive" practices - are likely to be seen by a Master as thorns in the flesh. A real Master is even quite likely to be contemptuous of the state of affairs that dominates his own field (or where it is heading) and will cling instead to his "own" reactive (or radical) understanding of how the discipline should be. The Master is always "out of step" with the status quo, and can see himself as the champion of tradition or of progressive thinking. But he will rarely see himself as simply the agent of the academy or the state.
Here it should be noted that while the text is often positioned "phallocentrically", "centrally" (and is used regulatively) by a Master's discourse, it is actually very common to find the text positioned as the "feminine" partner in the seminal production of the Master's commentary. Positioning the student's as feminine "receptacles" and feminising the text means that we are here to learn how to be "sensitive" to the text - "women" in a sense, but not hysterical women. Indeed Terry Lovell goes as far as to suggest that the process of "humanisation" by means of student-textual interaction is primarily a process of the "feminisation" of students, no less phallocratic than masculinisation of women or the commodification of students as "womanly" receptacles. (cf. Lovell, 1987) So we have the situation, described by Lovell, of the rank and file English students, mostly women, who sit at the feet of the male professor, ready to take his civilising message out into the schools where the really feral students are supposedly working at becoming even more illiterate.
Essentially, the discourse of the Master is the "Tyranny of the all-knowing and exclusion of fantasy [before which we experience the] retreat of subjectivity...." (Rose & Mitchell, 1985) This best describes the ultimate in despotic classrooms where teacher says and students are not allowed to disagree. It is certainly grounded on a "delusion of Truth and mastery", but it is a delusion that is often endorsed by knowledge practices that prove themselves performatively (the discourse of the Master is not automatically the discourse of an idiot).
The Discourse of the UniversityThe discourse of the University, on the other hand, is more subtle, more pervasive, and conceals egotism and personal "empire building" far more effectively. From Mitchell and Rose:
Here, knowledge or disciplinary competence takes the place of the Master. What is at stake is the ability of a student to operate in the field in a "competent" manner. A body of knowledge and technique is constituted as the "core" with the subsequent demand that students "empower" themselves by learning certain techniques of knowledge production. Presently, in English Studies, such techniques might include a command of Critical Theory, a particular sophisticated style of "close reading", or a knowledge of historical and biographical contexts and intertextualities. (Foucault, 1970 & 1980; Derrida, 1981) Competence with regard to such practices separates the educated from the uneducated response. For the discourse of the University essentially attempts to regulate students and Masters on behalf of "sound educational practices", responsibility, accountability, the productivity of the field and, ultimately, the state.
For the Master, his signature is a mark of authority, for the University all signatures must be acquired as marks of assent. Paradoxically, the well-meaning teacher who feels the weight of the academy often feels a responsibility to regulate the discourse of the classroom so as to guarantee sound education. The University demands that time must not be wasted. The easiest way to do this is to monopolise the space(s) of speech. When the academy demands "student-centred" practices, and does so without revising its assessment protocols so as to allow for deviant forms of activity, the teacher finds herself in a double-bind which only "faith" in the ultimate "effectiveness" of well researched teaching practices can easily resolve. Thus the academy typically promulgates the requirement of such faith by advancing a utilitarian discourse grounded on the research findings endorsed by those currently in control. These research findings invariably rely on the value of performativity that accomodates the discourse of the University, rather than on Truth as such. When egalitarian, they are premised on the idea of the superior productivity of equal distribution, not on the idea of a categorical imperative which would demand an ethical response even at the cost of production. Because of this double-bind, the teacher might be encouraged to feel guilty if she is not constantly "improving". This is typical of what Foucault calls a "disciplinary" regime where surveillance is at maximum, as opposed to a "legislative" regime where once you have your papers you are on your own (the latter being an excellent recipe for producing Masters). Under such a disciplinary regime, the academy is quite ready to get inside your soul. During the compilation of staff "development" or "appraisal" profiles, for example, teachers can be considered egotistical and dishonest if they refuse to confess their frailties. When this happens, teachers quickly learn the ropes: confess to minor "problems", make the right noises about "improving in problem areas", but never let on that there you are having any serious difficulties. Filling in staff development questionnaires often leads to "mentoring", which, when compulsory, can be a rather degrading process, and is probably supposed to be. The first question a hysteric asks is "who mentors the mentors"? A teacher who refuses to take all this "prying" seriously - and most of them are acting like Masters - could, particularly in the current climate of renewable contracts and voluntary redundancies, even feel too threatened to really become "recalcitrant".
Nothing is too "small" or too "big" for the discourse of the University to concern itself. The discourse of the University reaches from the minutiae of how to record student marks to the "vision" of the academy as competitive in the "global market", and "pro-active" in its response to "government initiatives". The University even announces creativity its "top priority". But it's a kind of efficient and productive creativity. Everybody must speak, and speak in a way appropriate to the field. Thus in the classroom, tutorial or seminar, it is not infrequently observed that the teacher often forms what could be described as an "incestuous" alliance with one or two higs. Higs (high input generators) talk a lot. And they usually talk in acceptable ways. While this seems to be activating the discussion, an objective survey or discourse analysis would quickly reveal the price paid by ligs (low input generators). For those teachers who are themselves erstwhile higs, it is even more essential that pro-hysterical practices be engaged. In short, teacher-hig alliances maximise desire within the alliance, but minimised desire outside the alliance. Under such regimes, hysterics are hardly to be blamed for their internalisations, underproduction(s), or antiproductive outbursts.
This regime basically corresponds with Foucault's description of a "Discipline". (Foucault, 1970) In English Studies, this "disciplinary" element becomes tied to the performance of commentary, which is why it is strange in some sense to talk about the "discipline" of Literary Criticism (which has traditionally been highly idiosyncratic). But as Literary Criticism becomes less of a "Society of Discourse" and more of a "Discipline", it is becoming less idiosyncratic - and besides, personal style was never a matter of "individual taste" (it was always associated with a Society of Discourse). Let us hope it never freezes enough to be called a "Dogma". (Foucault, 1970) Presently then, our English institutions operate as mixed and unstable regimes, but almost always with an eye to regulating revolutionary commentary in so far as it remains productive.
The Discourse of the HystericOnce again, the discourse of hysteria is completely different. It is crazy and utopian - even when suicidal:
The hysterical question is "unrealistic", paranoid, delusional, hypochondriac, unstable and fluxatious, troublesome. Hysteria violates textual and disciplinary codes, rules, conventions, modes of production, technologies of knowledge, discursive bounds or limits. Hysteria is self-contradictory and "uninformed": the "symptom" of the question takes the place of the real business: the text, the ego of the master, or the need to make a worthwhile contribution to the field. Hysteria disinvests the academic socius through the "fantastic" production of a disseminative surplus (eg: a "waste" of time, resources etc). (Derrida, 1981 & Spivak, 1987, esp. p.82) Hysteria makes spurious economies where counterfeit circulates. Hysteria turns the question/reply transaction into a ruse. (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, 1987; Derrida, 1981; Cixous & Clement, 1986; Irigaray, 1985a, 1985b, 1991a, 1991b, 1993b) The hysteric raises the "question of subjectivity" (Mitchell & Rose, 1985), but not necessarily in a direct manner. The hysteric need not say: "Who am I?" or "What is Being?", but might ask another question, or pose a silence that nevertheless has the effect of alienating us from the certainties of knowledge and identity that we tend to buy into as we go about our daily business. Desire, for a hysteric is in the form of question that threatens the construct of subjectivity from below. It is the "old mole" of subjective revolution. As such, the discourse of the Hysteric might be seen as corresponding to the position granted (or more usually forced upon) the "subject" who has "failed" under a commentary regime, a Discipline, or even a Dogma (hysterics make excellent heretics). (cf. Foucault, 1970) Habituses (i.e. learned predispositions) and the rules that govern fields are not completely irrelevant to the hysteric, but are part of the problem. They are used to judge the hysteric. (Bourdieu, 1990) You could say that the hysteric has a dysfunctional or badly adapted habitus (or "feel for the game"), but you would be talking the discourse of the University. The hysteric, because she is dysfunctional, has no knowledge, but she is still supposed to love the Master or Analyst precisely because of her ignorance. (Lacan, 1977b & 1985). But, in fact, hysterics don't just have badly adapted habituses, they are actively and antiproductively engaged in destructuring both habitus and field. Hysterics are like sorceresses, positioned on the fringes. They are intermediaries between the "civilised" and the "wild", between the structured and the unstructured, between the formal and the heterogeneous, which is why listening to a hysteric can be so thought provoking.
The typical "University" solution, however, is to "nurture" the hysteric back to quiet "ligdom", or if possible, even higgish productivity. Otherwise, just fail her. Repression and inscription are the enemies of the hysteric, they are what she is tired of. The hysteric is the scapegoat (Cixous & Clement, 1986) accused of pretending, of hypochondria, of manipulation, of masochism, of selfishness, sadism, inconstancy, irrationality, and bad social skills. A hysteric is "producing the symptom in the place of knowledge". (Rise & Mitchell, 1982) But the preamble to such a symptomography is that, somewhere "inside her", the hysteric already knows too much. Contestation arises when, from the hysterical "knowing place", the hysteric feels free to raise the question of whose knowledge of whom.
The Discourse of the AnalystThis is where the role of the Analyst begins:
It is important to remember that the Lacanian analyst does not reply until the hysteric has given utterance to her splitting - but the corollary of this therapeutic reserve is that the analyst already knows that the hysteric's problem is that she loves and loathes the Signifier[S1]. (Lacan, 1977, pp.31ff) Her problem stems from an unwillingness - or inability - to make the "normal" compromises. On the bright side, the discourse of the analyst is the regime of the teacher who listens to the students without pre-empting their desires or immediately moving to negate or recuperate their voices. On the dark side, the Analyst is commonly just the Master or the University in disguise. It is, for example, commonplace didactic strategy to rephrase a student's utterance in "acceptable" terminology. This is obviously a recuperative practice, and when applied to the discourse of the hysteric, it can only further her sense of alienation. Operating the discourse of the Analyst does not mean listening only to offer this sort of comprehensive reply. The discourse of the Analyst is a small discourse. It is a belated discourse. It is a discourse that stops itself from knowing too soon. It waits, but while it waits it modifies itself so as to hear better, so as to produce situations where heterogeneous voices can feel comfortable. It is the regime of the "ethical" teacher who is prepared to make sacrifices and alter her mode of teaching and subject matter; who replies to the courage of those hysterics willing to risk disagreeing with the teacher, text, or field. Briefly, "ethics" is an intersubjective and pragmatic concern for subjective alterity and politico-relational equality. Like a Master, then, the Analyst is also "out of step". The University, itself, makes certain demands which effectively curtail the potentially ethical dynamic of hysteric and her ethical teacher. An Analyst is always in danger of becoming an agent of the University, just as she is always liable to lapse into mastery.
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