From the psychoanalytic standpoint, the core of the problem resides in the autonomy of the symbolic order.
We live enveloeped by a symbolic order. And what is the symbolic order? It is the social world we are in; the world of linguistic communication, intersubjective relations, knowledge of ideological conventions etc.
Sorrounded by our cultural mores Slavoj Zizek speceulates, "...let us say I am impotent because of some unresolved blockage in my symbolic universe and, instead of ‘educating’ myself by trying to resolve the blockage, I take Viagra. The solution works, I am able to perform again sexually, but the problem remains. How will the symbolic blockage be affected by this chemical solution?"
How will the solution be ‘subjectivised’?
For the solution might unblock the symbolic obstacle, compelling me to accept its meaninglessness; or it might cause the obstacle to return at some more fundamental level (in a paranoiac attitude, perhaps, so that I experience myself as exposed to the caprice of a ‘master’ whose interventions can decide my destiny).
There is always a symbolic price to be paid for such ‘unearned’ solutions.
Mutatis mutandis, the same goes for attempts to fight crime through biochemical or biogenetic intervention; compelling criminals to take medication to curb excessive aggression, for example, leaves intact the social mechanisms that triggered the aggression in the first place.
We live enveloeped by a symbolic order. And what is the symbolic order? It is the social world we are in; the world of linguistic communication, intersubjective relations, knowledge of ideological conventions etc.
Sorrounded by our cultural mores Slavoj Zizek speceulates, "...let us say I am impotent because of some unresolved blockage in my symbolic universe and, instead of ‘educating’ myself by trying to resolve the blockage, I take Viagra. The solution works, I am able to perform again sexually, but the problem remains. How will the symbolic blockage be affected by this chemical solution?"
How will the solution be ‘subjectivised’?
For the solution might unblock the symbolic obstacle, compelling me to accept its meaninglessness; or it might cause the obstacle to return at some more fundamental level (in a paranoiac attitude, perhaps, so that I experience myself as exposed to the caprice of a ‘master’ whose interventions can decide my destiny).
There is always a symbolic price to be paid for such ‘unearned’ solutions.
Mutatis mutandis, the same goes for attempts to fight crime through biochemical or biogenetic intervention; compelling criminals to take medication to curb excessive aggression, for example, leaves intact the social mechanisms that triggered the aggression in the first place.
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