Zionism and psychoanalysis

Link: Nation as trauma, Zionism as question: Jacqueline Rose interviewed Jacqueline Rose Rosemary Bechler - openDemocracy.

openDemocracy: What is the relationship between your approach to Zionism and psychoanalysis?

Jacqueline Rose: Zionism was a self-conscious, self-created movement out of nothing – no language, no state, no home. As Jacques Lacan says about the hysteric: the membrane between the conscious and the unconscious is drawn so thin that you can look in and see everything fermenting underneath. It was a phantasmagoria that then came true due to sheer will and determination.

Consequently, Zionism reveals precisely the unconscious determinants of what it is to try and forge a national identity, including the pain and the costs involved. So I reject the charge of humiliating the founder figures, Theodor Herzl or Chaim Weizmann; instead, I argue that they were in touch with the disturbing nature of what they were attempting, and that this is a form of creativity.

I have just finished working on the new Freud edition of Moses and Monotheism (now retranslated as Moses the Man), in which I discuss Freud’s relationship to his Jewishness. In this iconoclastic work, Freud argues that Moses was an Egyptian.

Edward Said’s little essay “Freud and the non-European”, says that Freud was searching for a prototype of a national entity which would allow itself to be founded by a stranger. What a fantastic insight! For me, it is no coincidence that at the same time as Zionism is importing into the middle east what, for urgent historical reasons, is a very rigid version of a self-defining, self-sufficient, monolithic ethnic identity, psychoanalysis was taking apart the fantasy of any notion of national belonging of that kind.

I have just finished an article about the correspondence between Freud and the novelist Arnold Zweig, who went to live in Palestine in 1933 and hated it. The correspondence between Zweig and Freud was all about national identification. Zweig is saying that he could no longer identify with Germany as a fatherland, but nor did he feel that he belonged in Palestine. He decides to leave when he goes to a peace demonstration with a leftwing group and they refuse to talk to him in German. He objected that most of them would have been speaking Yiddish at home, even while insisting he spoke Hebrew. He wanted nothing to do with nationalism of this kind.

So psychoanalysis was offering a critique of militant forms of national self-identification at the same time as Zionism was establishing itself: they are reverse sides of the same coin.

Comments

[Amish Lovelock]

This was a real pleasant surprise this morning when Open Democracy sent me the link!

[Jodi]

Amish--absolutely! a really nice surprise!!

[Alain]

Jodi

Thanks for the link. This looks very interesting. But to rock the boat a little (and respectfully), do you think Zizek's comments about Israel are informed by psychoanalysis? This may seem like a stupid question given his indebtedness to Lacan, but it just seems that most of his off hand remarks seem rather simplistic and borderline antisemitic. I know this touches on some of the issues Alphonse has raised, but I am asking just from my perspective as someone who has only just begun to read Zizek in the last year. Some of his work is simply brilliant but I am concerned by some of his more flippant comments about ethnicity and race. They seem out of place in relation to his more Marxist/Psychoanalytic insights. Just wondering what you think. Thanks.

[Jodi]

Alain,
I don't think Z is anti-Semitic at all. In the LS thread, as I recall, Alph reads the Jews as standing in for Capital in Z's writing. That is, the only way Z is coherent in his points on Palestine and Israel is if the Jews stand for Capital. I don't find that argument convincing. It my view, it could inform a critique of Zizek, such that he should be paying more attention to Capital in the Israel/Palestine situation. But, it doesn't work to say that he is talking about Capital but masking it under the term the Jews.

Flippant--yes, Z is often flippant. This opens him up to fair criticism. Yet, to me, what is most interesting is trying to get a sense of his overall view, what is the argument. (This is also why I am not a Derridean, a good deconstruction of Z will show how what seems to be marginal, supplemental, extra is actually crucial to the argument. I think this may be possible, but in my view, it depends on showing the relation to the overall argument, and up till now, very few commentators on Z are working with and through the overall positions.)

Anyway, Z often gives examples of racist speech. What is the function of these examples? Sometimes it is to say that politically correct speech doesn't work, that it backfires, that it masks the underlying problem and that the underlying problem is only 'solved' once it isn't a problem anymore, once it doesn't register as a problem. At other times, he emphasizes sticking to the letter of the law, playing completely by the rules, holding one's opponent up to the letter (the politically correct speech in this case). So when does one do what? That's a matter of context, a question contingent on the context and cannot be formally determined.

So, to think about the question with respect to context, I'll use an example. I'm a feminist. Yet, I often use the term 'chick'--like, the chick in the black boots wants your phone number. When I'm in groups of women, usually academic women, usually non straight women, this doesn't raise an eyebrow, it's a common term, unproblematic. If, however, a male colleague were to use that term, it's highly likely it would be inappropriate. So, in one instance, the underlying problem (women's equality) is resolved, not an issue; in the other instance, it is still a problem, still an issue, so the term offends.

Also, I think that the material I'm discussing here is serious thought, not flippant, an interesting use of Lacanian categories to discuss race and ethnicity. You might look at the last chapter of Tarrying with the Negative. Or, search for Enjoy your nation (I think). That might yield a version of the same material.

I hope this helps.

[Mark Kaplan]

Yet, I often use the term 'chick'--like, the chick in the black boots wants your phone number.

Does this fall under the name 'irony'? Are you appropriating the term ironically? And if so, isn't Zizek also deeply suspicious of such 'ironic gestures' as being not at all subversive but the very lubricant of ideological success??

[Mark Kaplan]

Doesn't Zizek say somewhere that Israel - ie the state of Israel - is the classic 'lost object'? I may be mistaken. But if he does say this, who is the 'subject' that has 'lost' this object??

[Jodi]

Mark, I'll look for the lost object reference and see if I can say something intelligible.

On irony, when I use chick, this isn't ironic. It may have been 15 years ago. But now it's just the way I talk. And, this, I think, is part of his point, it isn't ironic or subversive. It's a way of speaking and there isn't an underlying problem level because that has been resolved.

On your using chick--I have no idea how it works because I don't know the context. I haven't spent a lot of social time with British academics (a few, but not much in England) so I don't feel like I can say.

[Mark Kaplan]

Jodi, i wouldn't dream of using it, I was quoting you! I think (one instance of) the Zizek thing might be here:

http://www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org/node.php?id=1266

[Jodi]

Eek--I'm a moron. Sorry, Mark. I misread your remark re chick. Will now look at link.

[Jodi]

Mark,

Isn't it the case that the state of Israel, and Jerusalem, is the lost object of the Jews? And that the interesting problem is the convergence of an actual physical place with a fantastic other place of biblical import?

Since you probably read this the same way, maybe your question is actually meant to point out something else? Or no?

[Mark Kaplan]

Not exactly. I half remembered the quote after reading Alain’s initial point above. I thought you might be able to locate it. Then, later, I simply typed in ‘Israel, lost object, Zizek’ & that’s what came up, so I posted it as a comment. This was just before I went to bed last night. So, I can see how it might have appeared coy. Anyway, I thought the answer to the question might go some way to addressing Alain’s point. One of the possible answers might have been that 'Israel' functions in the rhetoric of a certain Zionism as a kind of invocation of a lost object. It does seem to me significantly different to say that a ‘Subject’ called ‘the Jews’ craves or posits this lost object. I agree that Zizek is frequently flippant, or occasionally uses such terms as a kind of shorthand. Nevertheless, there does seem to me to be something worthy of further questioning here.

ps Is the first part of your comment a quote from Zizek or your own question to me, i wasn't sure.

[Amish Lovelock]

Some related stuff:

http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=251684

http://www.politicaljuice.com/2004/11/zizek_on_israel.html

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/623/op33.htm

[Jodi]

Mark , the question was me back to you, or my answer written as a question in an effort to avoid having my tone sound icky or lecturey or something.

Anyway, yes, the point would have been more accurate, less controversial were it made about Zionism, that is, were is qualified and specified some. And, it is worth considering why Z doesn't do this, is there a pattern in his not doing this, is their anything close to integrity in do this, or is it his own kind of bad-boy extremism or worse.

To my mind, the point on the lost-object status of Jerusalem and Jewish land is compelling because of the way it combines an impossible fantasied object with the actual territory in a political conflict. And, when one is considering this conflict, the fantasy level always intrudes, disrupts, and colors what is being considered. To qualify the point as simply Zionism, gets rid of the complication, the working of fantasy in the field of the political.

[Alain]

Jodi and Mark

Thanks for the thoughtful responses. I read the full interview with J Rose and was so impressed I bought the book last night. Clearly her project is far broader on this subject than a few off hand comments by Zizek. She is attributing an Apocalyptic Messianism as the driving fantasy of Zionism. I just started it last night and it is really powerful.

In the context of Rose's more robust psychoanalytic reading, Zizek's off hand remarks seem to make some sense. But I think this does raise larger questions which Zizek may respond to elsewhere: What is the relationship between psychoanalytic explanations and more traditional Marxist ones? In the example we are discussing, the neurotic obsession with the "lost" object does not seem to leave any room for economic/environmental causes for the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Also, in his analysis, there is no discussion as to why the Palestinians remain attached to the land. Clearly the Isrealis have tried to create conditions that make it appealing for the Palestinians to "cleanse themselves" from the West Bank and Gaza. And while it would be a humanitarian crisis requiring a global response, we witness mass dislocations of indigenous populations on a regular basis. Egypt, Jordan and Syria have all made it clear that the Palestinians would not be welcomed but would they prevent them from coming? I only raise these questions because, even giving Zizek the benefit of the doubt, it would seem the pathology that he (rightfully in my opinion) attributes to the Jews could be equally applied to the Palestinians. One could speculate as the their "learned helplessness," and self-victimization. This in no way means we should blame the victims, but I would posit that a true analysis would look at the mass pathology in its entire scope.

I certainly understand that this is not Zizek's project or something he should be required to do. And maybe I am being overly sensitive as a Jew. But sometimes, Zizek "sounds" anti-semitic. But I have not read enough to make a final judgement. And even if he were, I do not think this means we should not read and gain from his insights. He is an iconoclast and a provocatour (sp?) And that is a good thing, especially today.

[Mark Kaplan]

Alain,

Just a comparable case:

If we take Irish nationalism in the decades before the Free State, there are different strains visible. Some nationalists appeal to non-religious Enlightenment values and simply want political and economic independence, others stress the Catholic or Gaelic nature of Ireland, others speak of a kind of mother Ireland, confiscated and plundered by the English and to which the Irish must return. Now, these appeals to an ancient pre-colonial Ireland, the sense that it would be possible to return to or revive this Ireland, were surely mythic - a classic case of the ‘lost object’, it might be said. But this is not a ‘pathology of the Irish’ (or an ‘irish pathology’) in any sense whatsoever. It is part of the logic of a certain nationalism.

[Jodi]

Alain,

I've been grappling with the relation between psychoanalytic and Marxist explanation in Zizek for a while. I still haven't come to an anwer that I think is fully satisfying. The components of an answer that I do find compelling have to do with addressing problems in the Althusserian account of interpellation so as to explain the place of the subject and with accounting for a kind of pernicious stickiness or intractability of certain kinds of problems, a stickiness that persists beyond seemingly reasonable explanations and solutions.

On the lost object: I see Z's point here not as trying to provide a full or ultimate explanation but a kind of extra, a way of thinking about intractability. And, as Mark suggests, this intractability could well be a feature of nationalism in a larger sense--the need to establish and protect a pure homeland. I would think of this as an empirical question--is it the case that different groups use similar images, metaphors, motifs in their struggles or in their fantastic self understandings? And, do some motifs or images appear at particular times, in responses to specific controversies? For example, an interesting legal scholar (whose name I can't recall but I'll look for the cite if you are interested) has argued that presentations of the holocaust Israel in and in the United States change significantly as a result of the Eichman trial. I think, but I may be mistaken, that he connects these changes to changes in the presentation of Israel as well.

On the Palestinians--in your view does it seem that they have been obstinately attachment to the land? That they don't belong their or shouldn't be there or have no place? I'm not asking these questions polemically--I was just wondering about your point regarding inquiry into a Palestinian lost object.

Alain, when you say that Z sounds anti-semitic, you are saying that the way he writes is more than a criticism of Israel and or Israeli policies but crosses a line. I think this may well be a fair point. As you say, he writes to provoke. This may be good. Sometimes it will result in misses. Given the editorial by Eli Wiesel in today's NYT ("The Dispossed") I find Z's account in the link Mark provided all the more convincing.

Another question might be whether it participates in or galvinizes anti-semitism. This strikes me as important and really difficult right now. The situation is so complicated: hard core Christian fundamentalists understand themselves as pro-Israel, pro-Jewish, but all with a twisted view of honoring Jesus and ushering in the second coming.

You are also probably aware of the complicated situation at Columbia University where professors supportive of Palestine have been criticized as heavily anti-semitic by an organized student group.

I'm interested in your response. It might also be very cool if you did an LS post on the JRose book.

[Mark]

Alain,

just another thought:

I think it plausible that ideologies achieve success by mapping their rhetorical & ideational structures (not a particularly elegant phrase, I’ll grant you) onto those of the ‘individual psyche’, or perhaps allowing the individual psyche to map itself onto them – and transform itself in the process, although it’s also important to stress the ways in which that psyche is historically mediated in all kinds of ways. But that’s not the same as positing entities like ‘the Irish’ as magnified versions of the individual psyche (but with their ontological structure intact). Also worth adding, I think, that History needless to say isn’t a crossword puzzle to which the answer is invariably Lacanian schema. I think it’s illegitimate to say here’s a certain phenomenon on one level (ie the individual) and look, here it is the-same-but-bigger on a completely different ontological level (eg national).

ps drafted this before seeing Jodi's reply, above.

[Jodi]

Mark,

Even as I agree with you that it doesn't make sense to posit entities like 'the Irish' as magnified versions of the individual psyche, we can also say that it doesn't make sense to posit an individual psyche as a microversion of a group (a nation, ethicity, tribe, sex, or, city as Plato did).

What my lame little chiasmatic addition suggests, might then be a move that reminds us that no group nor 'psyche' is complete or whole. That insofar as there is subject, it is lacking and empty and filled, a marker of the failure of ideological fullness.

[Alain]

Mark and Jodi

Thank you again for more to think about. Mark, your point about nationalism is well taken. All I meant to say (rather unclearly) is that Zizek's rhetoric made the Jewish attachment to the land (lost object) sound pathological. So using that logic, the Palestinian attachment could be seen in a similar light. I want to be clear that I am in complete support of the Palestinian right to self rule, whether in a separate state alongside Isreal or as full and equal citizens in one multi-ethnic nation. I have never been a zionist, nor an uncritical supporter of Isreali policy. In fact, I find it very disturbing that Israeli rhetoric has fostered the confusion that to be critical of Isreal is to also be anti-semitic. This form of nationalism is beneath contempt. I have always considered myself a member of those "fellow travelers" who support the idea of a Jewish homeland, but are critical of the form it has taken. In this group I include Martin Buber, Hannah Arendt, and Gershom Scholem. All were critical at the time of Israel's birth and forsaw the interminable conflict that ensued. Each feared that the political and social ideals of Zionism would be made irrelavent by the need for constant military preparedness. They saw early on that the only alternative to this was to engage the palestinians as equals, and work to build an egalitarian, multi-ethnic society together. No imposed military settlement could allow for the flourishing of the just socialists society zionists had always dreamed of.

Regarding the Columbia professors, I have only read about the situation in a superficial context. My general view is that academic freedom should be protected at almost any cost. Short of someone calling for the execution of Jews on the corner, middle east professor's should be allowed to have opinions and share them in class. Years ago, when I was an undergraduate student at SUNY Stony Brook, there was an African American Professor (I think his name was Dube?) who said that Zionism was a form of "reactive racism." That is all I can remember of the incident but the Jewish groups on campus wanted him fired immediately. I think the professor had a legitimate point of view, defensible on several key points. To cite the holocaust as the reason for Jewish hypersensitivity has always seemed inadequate to me. My father is a holocaust survivor who was saved by the altruism of Hugenots who hid jewish children during the war. He is a much more "militant" Zionist, but he also instilled in me a keen sense of social justice. Oppression and domination are wrong, even when Jews are the one's perpetrating it. There is never an excuse for injustice. Sorry to ramble on. This is a great discussion and I think I will try to post on it. Thanks again.

[Jodi]

Alain,
Just a couple of quick thoughts. I recently was an external reviewer on an article that considered in part Arendt's writing from her identity 'as a Jew.' What was interesting and noteworthy was Arendt's specificity, about when and why she was choosing to write under that name. I liked the article very much (wish I could recall the Arendt text used) because it seemed a more nuanced treatment of identity politics than one has gotten for a while.

Also, while I was working on the 'ye who are weary post' I started thinking more about words for home and noticed the power of the image of Zion. Zion is where the real people live in the Matrix movies. It's interesting that it's called Zion, as a way of capturing a place of longing and hope for a new world. Also, a hymn from my childhood--we're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion...The longing and power of these ideals seems to me to stamp home your point about Arendt, Buber, and Scholem--with such ideals and power at stake, with the unbearable fears, compromises, and defenses inextricable from the nation state form, how could it not go wrong?

[Alain]

Jodi

I think you raise a good question: How could it not go wrong? Perhaps it must. One disscussion of Arendt in particular has influenced me a great deal: Richard Bernstein wrote a book several years ago entitled "Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question." It touches on this exact point. His thesis is that most of what came to be her political philosophy was in nacent form in her zionist writings: the emphasis on plurality, worker councils, and local self-rule. Her desire for a "Jewish politics" in response to European anti-semitism was the motivation of much of her thought. I think he makes a very convincing case. Anyway, most of her zionist writings are collected in a book that has been out of print for years called the Jew as Pariah, or something like that. It is very difficult to find and I have been hoping it would get reissued.

[Amish Lovelock]

Alain,

This is interesting. A friend of mine here in Japan has just published an essay on Arendt asking the question: When did Arendt become a political philosopher? His answer is when Arendt - precisely because of the holocaust - began to write in a way that found a more universal significance beyond Jewish ontology. He quotes quite a bit from the Jew as a Pariah book, which is still available in translation here. He also quotes from the Vanhagen book, Kafka, Heine, and others.

Actually, his argument might not be that far off from Bernstein's. The emphasis on plurality, workers councils etc... could be said to have gained a more universal significance after the holocaust.

[Alain]

Amish

If I may be so bold, if your friend's essay is in English could you send me a copy? This topic is of great interest to me. And Bernstein documents this development from her Zionism writings, through the Origins of Totalitarianism, up through the essays in On Revolution. What struck me about the argument is that most people come at Arendt through the Human Condition, which seems to be so much Grecco-Roman romanticism. What the Bernstein book does is situate her work within the 20th century turmoil that she faced personally as a "stateless person."

[Amish Lovelock]

It's in Japanese but I'll see if he has an English version. He's working on Arendt's notion of the refugee and its significance for political philosophy somewhat differently from someone like Agamben.

[Alain]

Amish

Thank you. I appreciate that.