More ideas inspired from and by Jill Gentile

In the main presentation of the morning “Between Psychoanalysis and Democracy: On Free Speech and Feminine Law,” Gentile says psychoanalysis is a semiotic project, a process of semiotic empowerment, because the analyst opens the space for conversation on equal footing, similar to the ideals of democracy. Gentile says that both psychoanalysis and democracy appeal to truth, rebuke tyranny and exchew censorship. Psychoanalysis, with its fundamental rule to tell the truth and throw off the chains of censorship, is akin to free speech, a treasured element of democracy. One responsibility of citizenship is to have/use one’s voice, and, just as in psychoanalysis, to participate, particularly in truth telling and in proclaiming one’s desire [through voting, for example]. Both psychoanalysis and democracy have a rule of law (which demands accountability) to honor a third ‘space’ for mediation or for checks and balances.

Psychoanalytic concepts such as ‘containment, potential space, intersubjective space’ speak to the importance of seeking metaphors for ‘space’ [the gap] which Gentile says is the search for a feminine metaphor previously adumbrated by the phallic. Democracy is about creating a level playing field and thus eschews exclusion [John Dunn, the British political theorist]. Psychoanalysis, too, strives for a democratic process but it requires a democratic theory, an ‘equal under the law’ feminine metaphor. It needs to name the gap itself, signify the unspoken, and elevate it to a level playing field. Society’s failure to do so, noted Gentile, endangers democracy when the world excludes the rights of women [President Jimmy Carter]; it leads to the degradation of Mother Earth [accelerates global warming], and attacks the reproductive and proprietal rights of women’s bodies.

The most recent post [9-25-18] mentioned the girl’s impetus to seek knowledge and bend toward truth, while the boy might, instead, deny the mystery of the ‘gap.’ Gentile noted that Freud privileged the penis at the expense of reality. Denial is a breakdown of the tension between fantasy and reality, leaving boys vulnerable to being less tethered to the truth [contrast this with Freud’s idea that the male superego is superior to the female’s]. Gentile muses about the U.S. 2016 presidential campaign with its degradation of women’s bodies as well as how our current president [many have remarked, anyway] is untethered to the truth, whereas the “Me, too” movement is about free speech, especially including the bodies of those with minority status such as women. Empowerment comes with naming, with signification. The unnamed is marginalized. Signifying [vagina, uterus, clitoris, labia, vulva] animates genitals and their usefulness and desirability. Freud was aware of the gap but seemed to ignore its significance in the material bodies of women, instead attending to what was present in the bodies of boys. Yet, psychoanalysis gives voice to what was once unspoken; ‘what would it be if it had a name?’