සැබෑ මිනිසුන් වෙනුවට ග්ලිසරීන් මිනිසුන් උවමනා කර ඇත.

Does this modify the view of the Lacanian Real as a transcen dental impossibility?

The notion of the Real presupposed here is the Real-as­ impossible in the sense of the big absence: you always miss it, it’s a basic void and the illusion is that you can get it. The logic is that whenever we think we get the Real, it’s an illu­ sion, because the Real is actually too traumatic to encounter: directly confronting the Real would be an impossible, inces ­- tuous, self-destructive experience. I think that I am partially co-responsible for this serious revisionism, to put it in Stalinist terms. [Not Deepthi ]I am co-responsible for the predominance of the notion of the Real as the impossible Thing: something that we cannot directly confront.[To whom it may concern] I think that not only is this the­oretically wrong, but it has also had catastrophic political consequences insofar as it opened up the way towards thiscombination of Lacan with a certain Derridean-Levinasian problematic: Real, divinity, impossibility, Otherness. The idea is that the Real is this traumatic Other to which you cannot ever answer properly. But I am more and more convinced that this is not the true focus of the Lacanian Real. Where then is the focus?

What consequences does this perspective hold for the theory of ideology? Does it mark a departure from the psychoanalytic view of ideology that offers a construction of reality as a way of escaping the horrifying condition of the Real?

I am no longer satisfied with my own old definition of ide­ology where the point was that ideology is the illusion which fills in the gap of impossibility and inherent impossibility is transposed into an external obstacle, and that therefore what needs to be done is to reassert the original impossibility. This is the ultimate result of a certain transcendentalist logic: you have an a priori void, an original impossibility, and the cheat­ ing of ideology is to translate this inherent impossibility into an external obstacle; the illusion is that by overcoming this obstacle you get the Real Thing. I am almost tempted to say that the ultimate ideological operation is the opposite one: that is, the very elevation of something into impossibility as a means of postponing or avoiding encountering it.

Again, I am almost tempted to turn the standard formula around. Yes, on the one hand, ideology involves translating impossibility into a particular historical blockage, thereby sustaining the dream of ultimate fulfilment – a consummate encounter with the Thing. On the other hand – and this is something you have already touched upon in your excellent ‘Ideology and its Paradoxes’ paper – ideology also functions as a way of regulating a certain distance with such an encounter. It sustains at the level of fantasy precisely what it seeks to avoid at the level of actuality: it endeavours to convince us that the Thing cannot ever be encountered, that the Real forever eludes our grasp. So ideology appears to involve both sustenance and avoidance in regard to encountering the Thing.