The Television-Mirror
We are in the midst of a fundamental change in the dominant discourse that has penetrated every domain of society: nations, trade networks, families, schools, science, relationships, and so on. It is surprising to me that one of the discourses that remains largely without compromise, at least inwardly, is the religious one. In a way, Lacan foresaw this moment when he spoke of the triumph of religion alongside the expansion of the scientific discourse. Today’s newest social movements, clinging to the past, have no idea what social forces are now operating upon them.
In 1974, Lacan said:
“[Religion] will triumph not only over psychoanalysis but over lots of other things too. We can’t even begin to imagine how powerful religion is. I spoke a moment ago about the real. If science works at it, the real will expand and religion will thereby have still more reasons to soothe people’s hearts. Science is new and it will introduce all kinds of distressing things into each person’s life.”
However, I do not think demographics give us a full picture. I am quite interested in qualitative explanations. For example, some of those who are converting do so as a last ditch effort to introduce again sexual difference, since scientific discourse, joining with the capitalist discourse, has done quite the opposite: the eradication of sex and the promotion of the sexual rapport at all costs.
Lacan said, on Television:
“The fact that it already happened somewhere is our good fortune, a fortune good for nothing more than demonstrating that things are going badly there for liberty even in its sketchiest form. That’s simply capitalism set straight. Back to zero, then, for the issue of sex, since anyway capitalism, that was its starting point: getting rid of sex.”
Television is a mirror that incorporates a delay into the gestalt. The world-body does not necessarily return, as in the mirror. The television is a gadget of the discourse of science in its early phase. It is why Marshall McLuhan thought that it was an important one, a precursor to the world that was to come.
