The Most Thought-Provoking Description...
Jun. 18th, 2015 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sathorTaken from Slavoj Zizek's Essays at: http://rebels-library.org/files/zizek_welcome.pdf
Take the phenomenon of 'cutters' (people, mostly women, who
experience an irresistible urge to cut themselves with razors or
otherwise hurt themselves); this is strictly parallel to the virtualization
of our environment: it represents a desperate strategy
to return to the Real of the body. As such, cutting must be contrasted
with normal tattooed inscriptions on the body, which
guarantee the subject's inclusion in the (virtual) symbolic
order- the problem with cutters, is the opposite one, namely,
the assertion of reality itself. Far from being suicidal, far from
indicating a desire for self-annihilation, cutting is a radical
attempt to (re)gain a hold on reality, or (another aspect of the
same phenomenon) to ground the ego firmly in bodily reality,
against the unbearable anxiety of perceiving oneself as nonexistent.
Take the phenomenon of 'cutters' (people, mostly women, who
experience an irresistible urge to cut themselves with razors or
otherwise hurt themselves); this is strictly parallel to the virtualization
of our environment: it represents a desperate strategy
to return to the Real of the body. As such, cutting must be contrasted
with normal tattooed inscriptions on the body, which
guarantee the subject's inclusion in the (virtual) symbolic
order- the problem with cutters, is the opposite one, namely,
the assertion of reality itself. Far from being suicidal, far from
indicating a desire for self-annihilation, cutting is a radical
attempt to (re)gain a hold on reality, or (another aspect of the
same phenomenon) to ground the ego firmly in bodily reality,
against the unbearable anxiety of perceiving oneself as nonexistent.
