Intertexts

Intcncxts, Vol. 2, No. 1.1998 Exploring the Text: Adorno, Lacan, and L i t e r a t u r e Wendy J. McCredie TEXAS LUTHERAN UNIVERSITY Thefocusofthispaperislanguage,theliteraryandphilosophicalwork ofartandthehumanactionthatinterpretssuchworks.UltimatelyI concerned with an inte^retive perspective that is ethical in aprecise sense diatItaketobeurgentinourmulticulturalglobalsociety.Thisperspective includesratherthanexcludesdifference,butdoesnotdecayintomoral relativism. The possibility for such an ethics emerges through the represen¬ tativepoweroflanguage.Thedimensionsoflanguagewhichunderliethis powercanbeanalysedwithLacaniantoolsanddescribedwithinthelogic®negative dialectic.Through the close and careful reading of a text, we can come to understand the ethics of language.This paper pro¬ videsthetheoreticalbasefromwhichsuchanethicaltextualreadingmight proceed. a m I . Apreliminary perspective on what is at stake in this ethics of language maybegainedfromthefollowingassertion,takenfromtheintroduction Negative Dialectics. Adorno addresses the question of philosophy’s rela¬ tionship to its rhetoric: InItsdependence—patentorlatent—ontexts,philosophyadmitsitslinpistic nature which the ideal of the method leads it to deny in vai [TJhis nature has been tabooed... as rhetoric. Severed and degraded into ameanstoachieveeffects,itbecamethecarrieroftheUeinphilosophy.... Inphilosophy,rhetoricrepresentsthatwhichcannotbethoughtexceptin language. (55) Adornogoesontooutlinedialecticsasanattempttoeffect“acriticalres¬ cueoftherhetoricalelement”(56).Philosophyitselfwillbesavedthrough itsownrecognitionofitsdependenceonlanguage,notmerelyasasorry substituteforthethoughtactbutasitsveryanimation:“Dialecticsappro¬ priates for the power of thought what historically seemed to be aflaw in thinking: its link with language, which nothing can wholly break” (56). The link between thought and language lies, of course, at the heart of the interpretive enterprise. Interpretation establishes the link called ing and, unfortunately, has atendency to force the text into apredeter¬ mined pattern, structure or ideology. An inclusivist interpretive ethic. t o m e a n 7 4 7 5 McCredie—Exploring the Text: Adorno, Lacan, and Literature however, resists the temptation to fiilly comprehend the text; it recognizes both the text’s and the critic’s limitations. If we are concerned with an ethics of inclusion (one might just as well say an ethics of difference), then it is important to listen to what texts, liter¬ ary or philosophical, have to say to us on their own terms. Each text pro¬ vides its own terms of critical analysis. In this sense ethical critics work not so much as “deconstructionists,” but as psychoanalysts. We allow, even en¬ couragetheanalysand,inthiscasethetext,toproducehisorherowndis¬ course which serves as the “cure.”^ The one major difference between our work and that of an analyst is that instead of looking to cure the text/ana¬ lysand, we look to the text to cure us. Thispostureasareaderis,ofcourse,direcdyrelatedtomysenseofthe ethical resources available to us in the texts themselves and our dialectical engagement with them.Adorno’s negative dialectics provide us with are¬ sponse to our human need for definitive interpretation, for historical clo¬ sure.Thenegativedialecticrecognizesthishumandesireforclosureand simultaneouslydeniesitsfulfillment.Withthisreal,simultaneousrecogni¬ tion and denial, interpretation remains essentially open.Adornian inspired textual interpretation allows the text to speak for itself within the presence ofitsreadersandtheirrespectivehistories.Inthissensethereader,orcritic, is the silent, but potentially authoritative, analyst. Through our presence the text “speaks” as the analysand speaks to his or her analyst. During the process of analysis, the analysand reproduces past Asthesescenesenterthecommunalpresentofanalysandandanalyst,as they are re-presented through language, the analysand reclaims them partofhisorherpresentreality.Theanalyst’spresence,thepresenceofan other, facilitates the work required to integrate the past, sometimes iso¬ lated event with the present in acontinuum with that past. The analysand narrateshisorherpresentthroughthearticulationofthepasteventswithin thecommunalpresentoftheanalystandtheanalysand,theotherandthe subject.Inthecaseofthereaderandthetext,thetextisthesubjectandthe readeristheanalysingother,eccentrictotheactionofthetext,butneces¬ sarytoitsarticulation.Thisisafundamentallydialecticalsiuiznon.Forthe processtobesuccessful,however,itiscrucialthatthevoiceoftheanalyst not supplant the emerging re-presentation of the analysand. It is anegative dialectic inAdorno’s sense in that it insists on the power of the figxurations inwhichthe“truth”comestolight.Indeed,itisonlyinandthroughsuch representationthatthetruthbecomesaccessibletoAeanalysandastruth. Thetruthofthesubjectbecomesavailableinagenuinedialecticwiththe Other. This dialectic is immediately responded to by acommensurate and correlative dialectic emanating from the Other as subject. s c e n e s . a s 7 6 I N T E R T E X T S I I . SincethesearekeytermsIshoulddefineascloselyaspossiblewhatI mean by the “subject” and the “other.” Both of these terms, as Iuse them, derive principally fi-om Lacan’s writings, and should be understood strutted categories, not as real or universal differentiations. Lacan describes the subject as follows: The subject goes well beyond what is experienced ‘subjectively’by the individual, exacdy as far as the tmth he is able to attain [TJhis truth of his history is not all contained in his script, and yet the place is marked therebythepainfulshockshefeelsfromknowingonlyhisownlines,and not simply there, but also in pages whose disorder gives him little fort. (55) Inthisearlydefinition,Lacanlikenstheanalysand...