Book Review: Todd McGowan, The End of Dissatisfaction? Jacques Lacan and the Emerging Society of
Enjoyment. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004.
‘The salient feature of contemporary
American society is the premium that it places on enjoyment’ (1), proclaims
Todd McGowan confidently in the opening line of his new book. McGowan argues that this characteristic of
American society is symptomatic of a cultural change so radical that it is as
significant as the onset of modernity: a brave claim to say the least, but it
is nonetheless what he spends the rest of the book attempting to prove. His style is readily accessible and instantly
engaging, an attribute that is in no way hindered by his sharp and frequently
witty use of illustrative examples from popular culture that range from U2 to
Ronald Reagan. Lacanian theory forms the
theoretical matrix of this book, as is duly acknowledged in the subtitle, which
McGowan makes sparing but purposeful use of in the course of his argument. If there is a flaw in this courageous foray
into a new episteme of American cultural history, it perhaps lies with
McGowan’s use of Lacanian theory. Each
chapter is carefully peppered with selective quotations from a broad range of
Lacan’s oeuvre. Yet the brevity of explanation that
accompanies the theoretical quotations may prove problematic for the
uninitiated in psychoanalytic jargon.
This in no way detracts from McGowan’s overall project however, which
proves to be as entertaining as it is informative.
According
to McGowan, contemporary American culture has shifted from a society founded on
the prohibition of enjoyment to a society that actually commands enjoyment or jouissance.
In the society of prohibition, all members must sacrifice their
private enjoyment for the good of society as a whole. In this way, ‘one receives an identity from
society in exchange for one’s immediate access to enjoyment, which one must
give up’ (3). For example, many
traditional religions promise an afterlife of enjoyment in return for the
eschewing of enjoyment in earthly life.
McGowan even sees incest prohibition, described by Levi-Strauss and
later by psychoanalytic theory as the cornerstone of modern society, as
characteristic of the society of prohibition in its demand that private
satisfaction be repudiated. In the new
society of enjoyment, such a sacrifice is no longer necessary. Rather, private enjoyment has become almost a
social duty, tantalizingly promising an end to dissatisfaction. Yet the impossibility of the fulfillment of
desire is a central tenet of Lacanian theory.
Therefore, rather than producing a idyllic society of contented
citizens, the new society of commanded enjoyment ensures that enjoyment itself
is just as unattainable as before, but for a different reason. In the society of prohibition, ‘enjoyment is
something that does not exist prior to
its renunciation’ (16). McGowan
argues that since there is no longer a barrier to enjoyment, enjoyment itself
cannot exist.
From this foundational thesis, McGowan
analyses various aspects of this new society, which fall into nine main
chapters. Employing a wide range of
topical cultural theory along with his mainstay of Lacanian psychoanalysis,
McGowan constructs a fluid yet wide-ranging argument. Each chapter begins with a detailed outline
of the particular facet of the society of enjoyment that is to be analysed,
followed by an illustrative example from popular culture, usually literature or
film. In the chapter entitled ‘Embracing
the Image’ McGowan argues that the shift from prohibition to enjoyment has
engendered a similar shift in emphasis in Lacan’s orders from the imaginary to
the symbolic. Images have always provided
a direct means of engagement for the human subject, and for Lacan the image
hails the onset of subjectivity in the mirror stage. As McGowan elucidates, the image has become
more powerful in this technology-driven age than ever before. In Don DeLillo’s Americana, ‘the image is the ultimate measure of reality’
(61). The decline of the symbolic is
also the subject for another chapter ‘The Appeal of Cynicism’. The rise of the imaginary has caused a
mistrust in language and in law. McGowan
states, ‘[t]his turn away from belief in the symbolic fiction and toward the
image beneath it reaches its apotheosis in the postmodern cynic’ (123). The irony of such cynicism from a Lacanian
point of view is that the symbolic always governs the imaginary, whether the
subject is aware of it or not. The
subject ‘fails to see the power that
the symbolic fiction has in structuring the experience of reality and the image
itself’ (123-4).
The
End of Dissatisfaction attempts
to articulate the radical changes that have taken place in the era of
post-modernity from a highly original perspective. Although McGowan’s debt to Lacanian theory is
obvious, the book falls into the category of cultural studies in its broadest
and most challenging sense. Not only
does McGowan succeed in arguing his thesis across the arenas of literature,
film, sociology and politics, he also succeeds in proving that Lacanian
psychoanalytic theory continues to be a powerful tool in the analysis of
culture, negating arguments that it is a science of the particular. In a tightly-structured argument that draws
on a diverse range of literary, cultural and social theorists, McGowan shows
that contrary to being the society of enjoyment described in the title, the endless
lust for private satisfaction has detached us from that possibility in a more
tragic way than ever before, producing what could more appropriately be named
the society of un-enjoyment.