Abstract

Setting out from a debate between two contemporary Lacanians about the religious significance of psychoanalysis, this paper argues that what such analysis really has to offer to a discussion of religion is purloined by the current round of academic polemics about its "revival." This argument is built in three steps: in the first, I demonstrate that the "site" of a meeting of psychoanalysis and religion is the "fundamental fantasy," tracing that concept's history from its Freudian pre-history through Lacan and showing it to coincide closely with both Freud's and Lacan's criticism of religion. In the second step, I show how the "fundamental fantasy" equally supports Johnston's militant anti-religiosity and Žižek's comparably militant argument for a revolutionary, transformed religion. "Following Atheism" traces the critical weaknesses of either position, noting how both lead to internal contradiction, to a failure to live up to the basic ethical claims of psychoanalysis. Based upon such a demonstration, the final step of the argument shows that, between them, these anti- and pro- religion polemics conspire to hide "in broad daylight" a single critical task for psychoanalytic theory today: they do so because what is emerging in our world defies description as either "anti-religion" or "religion." Turning to a deeper thread of Žižek's thought, "Following Atheism" asserts this basic transformation/replacement of fantasy underway in contemporary society. The paper closes with reflections on the nature of this revolution