Spectres of Marx in the Lacanian Left: Between Melancholia and Mourning of Marxism

Authors

  • David Pavón-Cuéllar Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22370/rhv2023iss23pp91-106

Keywords:

Marx, marxism, lacanian left, melancholia, mourning

Abstract

Moving into the space of tension and contradiction between philosophy and psychoanalysis, I reflect on the spectral way in which Marx and his legacy appear in the Lacanian Left. I explain this spectrality through the impossible mourning of Marxism. I bring in three authors who prescribe mourning here and ignore its impossibility: Özselçuk, Stavrakakis and Alemán. I resort to Benjamin, Lacan, Allouch and Traverso to problematise the Freudian distinction between mourning and melancholy in its application to Marxism. Instead of mourning with its post-Marxist bet, I defend an openly melancholic position based on the militant historical commitment to the dead and what Lacan has represented as the insurmountable directions indicated by Marx. I distinguish three great idealist attempts by the Lacanian Left to overcome the materially insurmountable directions: Laclau’s anti-essentialist discursive postmodernism, Žižek’s pessimistic Lacanian Hegelianism and Badiou’s Jacobin political Platonism. I contrast the Laclauian democratic populist concessions with the Badiouan-Žižekian fidelity to Marxism and communism.

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Published

2023-12-26

How to Cite

Pavón-Cuéllar, D. (2023). Spectres of Marx in the Lacanian Left: Between Melancholia and Mourning of Marxism. Revista De Humanidades De Valparaíso, (23), 91–106. https://doi.org/10.22370/rhv2023iss23pp91-106

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Monographic Section

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