The Randian hero is not ‘phallocratic’—it is rather the figure of the failed Master (Wynand in The Fountainhead, Stadler in Atlas Shrugged) who is phallocratic: paradoxical as it may sound, the being of pure drive who emerges once the subject ‘goes through the fantasy’ and assumes the attitude of indifference towards the enigma of the Other’s desire, is a feminine figure. What Rand was not aware of was that the upright, uncompromising masculine figures with a will of steel, with whom she was so fascinated, are effectively figures of the feminine subject liberated from the deadlocks of hysteria. It is well known that a thwarted (disavowed) homosexual libidinal economy forms the basis of military community—it is for that very reason that the Army opposes so adamantly the admission of gays in its ranks. Mutatis mutandis, Rand’s ridiculously exaggerated adoration of strong male figures betrays an underlying disavowed lesbian economy, i.e., the fact that Dominique and Roark, or Dagny and Galt, are effectively lesbian couples. It is thus a thin, almost imperceptible line that separates Rand’s ideological and literary trash from the ultimate feminist insight.
But who can discern that even finer line between the lesbian libidinal economy and the Lacanian frontal lobotomy?
I want a show about a tough team of kitsch cops who foil revolutionary activities with a dramatic entry and a burst of - confusion.
ReplyDeleteLet's call it "The Z Team." Mr. Z look good with a mohawk.
Chuckie Z
Very good, and did you ever see Hardware Wars? It was an early Star Wars spoof, and one of the jokes was that Darth Vader was incomprehensible when he spoke. So he would hiss and heave out some presumably terrifying remark and the princess with danish rolls in her hair would look confused and say "what? I don't understand what he's saying". I thought of this once at a Habermas lecture, because as you know his English isn't very good and he has a speech impediment, so all the grad students hanging on every word, pencil in hand, looked much like the princess confronted with the incomprehensible villain.
ReplyDelete- What did he just say? He met Hugo in a Trattoria?
- I think it was Foucault. and something about aporia.
Mr.Z would of course be incomprehensible and leave the lens dripping spit after his every speech.