It is worthwhile recalling Freud’s astute clinical observations here: obedience to the superego, sacrificing phallic jouissance in order to satisfy its demands, does not result in peace of mind. On the contrary, the subject is besieged by scruples of guilt and more “virtuous” he is. The renunciation of the drives increase discontent in people and culture." (Braunstein, 2020, pp. 265–266)
At what does Néstor want to get at with this affirmation? I understand that in this way, he comes close to highlighting the Freudian paradox about the superego: the more its demands are satisfied, the crueler it becomes, insatiably asking for more sacrifices and potentiating guilt. It’s that in the theory and the clinic, it’s only possible to approach the superego through its paradoxes. This is what Freud and Lacan do, like our fellow traveler Néstor Braunstein, for it is only by addressing these paradoxes that it is possible to clarify the proposed question: the relationship of the various jouissance(s) with the superego. Thus, I will have clarified two questions so far: Braunstein's (2020) formulation of the superego: "is jouissance without desire, outside or instead of desire" (p. 269) and the proposal he makes to address it: to appeal to its paradoxes. 3.- The Varied Jouissance(s) I am now going to look at the other variable at play in the question that I seek to clarify, which is that of the various jouissance(s) addressed by Néstor. He distinguishes three forms of jouissance, and from these varied jouissance(s) he tries to determine what is meant by the superegoic injunction to "enjoy," since he considers that "the three jouissance(s) are so different from a clinical and topological consideration that makes them mutually exclusive" (Braunstein, 2020, p. 266), though he does not cease to insist that these jouissance(s) are organized according to a Moebian logic: in opposition and indistinguishably. Once this contrast of the various jouissance(s) has been raised, Braunstein (2020) asks himself: "Is it a question of experiencing jouissance before, instead of, or after castration?” (p. 266); he responds: "Are we inclined toward jouissance of being, phallic jouissance or jouissance of the Other" (p. 266). I now allow myself to propose the relationship of these jouissance(s) to castration and their coordination with the three forms of jouissance according to Nestor's proposal:1) Jouissance before castration: this would correspond to the jouissance of being
2) Jouissance instead of castration: this would correspond to phallic jouissance
3) Jouissance after castration: this would correspond to the jouissance of the Other
Néstor says: "before speech there is the jouissance of being and after, Other jouissance of the jouissance of the Other (sex). Between the one and the other, semiotic jouissance, the one linked to the phallus and speech that separates the body" (Braunstein, 2020, p. 129). According to my reading, for Braunstein, the complexity of the Lacanian formulation of the superegoic imperative of jouissance can only be addressed if one takes into account the paradoxical statements of Freud and Lacan about the superego in correspondence with the various jouissance(s): jouissance of being, phallic jouissance, and jouissance of the Other (Other sex). I understand that, if this proposal is accepted, as proposed by the author, a superego triplicity will have to be recognized between:1) “A primitive superego, ferocious and obscene, demanding unrestrained jouissance” (Braunstein, 2020, p. 267), alien and prior to language: which would correspond to the jouissance of being.
2) “A Freudian superego that follows from the first: pacifying (and not to be trusted, passi fiant); it promises a reward for obedience to the Ideal ego (derived from identifications with the signifiers of the Other” (Braunstein, 2020, p. 267). This superego would correspond to phallic jouissance and the enhancement of meaning.
3) And a Lacanian superego, as he calls it, which impels us to enjoy, but with an essential difference from the other two:
In this superego, jouissance must pass through discourse and the semblant, which aspires to recover the lost jouissance (recherche) beyond prescriptions and barriers, confronting the subject with a limit (nec plus ultra), the impossible against which the subject stumbles as the effect of the inexistence of the sexual relation (S XVIII and CS). (Braunstein, 2020, p. 267)
This third Lacanian superego would correspond to the jouissance of the Other (sex).
The author recognizes the differences between his proposals and those formulated by Lacan at the third conference in Rome in 1974 and considers that he does not force them, though he transgresses them. I understand that he is referring to the phallic jouissance located by Néstor in the field of meaning, which excludes the real. 4.- The Trefoil of the Superego According to My Proposal Finally, and after developing Braunstein's version of the various jouissance(s) and their possible correspondence with the paradoxical formulations of the superego, I now give my version of the triplicity of the superego that I pointed out with the trefoil knot of the superego in my book Imperativos del superyó [Imperatives of the superego]. I can then answer about the relation of the various jouissance(s) to the superego, according to Braunstein's version, to which I now add my version, which is the following: – The primitive, obscene and ferocious superego, which demands an unbridled jouissance: it corresponds to the jouissance of being according to Braunstein and to my version of the superego as an echo of the drive, which I locate in the trefoil knot of the superego that knots the Real and Imaginary. I highlight what is clinically observable: need for punishment, nightmares, negative therapeutic reaction, among others. – Regarding the Freudian superego, which would correspond to phallic jouissance according to Braunstein, I trace my version of the superego as an Echo of the prohibition and locate it in the trefoil knot of the superego that links the Symbolic and the Imaginary. I highlight what is clinically observable: feelings of guilt, self-reproach, unfounded complaints, among others. – And with respect to the Lacanian superego, which commands us to jouissance with a jouissance that will have to pass through the discourse, that is, through the semblant that would correspond to the Jouissance of the Other (sex) according to Braunstein, I trace the version of the superego as the Echo of Oedipus and correlate the castration that I locate in the trefoil knot of the superego that links the Symbolic and the Real. I highlight what is clinically observable: unconscious guilt, punitive dreams, sacrificial symptoms, among others. Finally, I place the voice object as object a, trapped among the three, in the hole itself of the knot.
To substantiate my assertions I can say:
The paradoxical formulations of the superego do not hinder its approach, on the contrary, they enrich it. A harmonious version of the superego would impede us from analyzing its inevitable opacity and its diverse correspondences to the various jouissance(s). Hence, in order to dialectize the paradoxes of the superego in Lacan, I appeal to the simplicity of the trefoil knot, that knot that according to Lacan—in Seminar XXIII—comes from the Borromean knot, a topological resource that knots:
– Real and Imaginary: from which results the Echo of the drive as Imperative of jouissance.
– Symbolic and Imaginary: from which results the Echo of the prohibition as Mandate.
– Symbolic and Real: from which results as the Echo of Oedipus, and correlate of castration
Three superegos and three echoes: echo of the drive (terrible), echo of prohibition (gentle), echo of Oedipus and castration (moderate).
The object a as a voice is caught between the three, in the hole of the knot.
Thus, I make the three jouissance(s) proposed by Néstor: jouissance of being, phallic jouissance, and jouissance of the Other (sex) correspond to the three echoes of the superego of my labor: of the drive, of the prohibition, and of Oedipus-castration.
Three varied echoes that haunt subjectivity and social ties according to what is most extimate.
5.- To Conclude
Two considerations I would like to highlight:
1st: The paradoxical configuration of the superego requires taking into account both the echo of the Id as much as the echo of Oedipus. Of the first, Lacan (2018) says in Seminar XXIII "The drives are the echo in the body, in fact that there is a saying" (Lacan, p. 9); of the second as echo of Oedipus–castration, it presupposes the resonance of unconscious enunciation, as semblant.
This is what I conveyed to my dear friend Néstor Braunstein on the occasions when we talked and discussed the subject that I have just developed and that constitutes the last chapter of my book Imperatives of the Superego, whose 4th edition includes an incomparable and ironic epistolary prologue by Néstor that alludes to the questions specified here. Sadly, it was published after his Addio. I share with you that the one who caused it is the same person commemorated at the International Meeting held in Mexico City, where this contribution was read. Néstor Braunstein's work, his writing and sayings still circulate as “open work” according to Umberto Eco's formulation, and it is necessary that we sustain that circulation.
2nd: To conclude, I would like to emphasize that the varieties of jouissance(s) and paradoxes of the superego can be observed in the clinic and in contemporary life.
The current times of predatory neo-capitalism devastate the social bond and therefore give preeminence not to the subject of desire, of the word, but to the de-subjectivized individual, now converted into a robotic consumer, now an object of consumption itself. Primacy of the wager on mortiferous jouissance and sacrificial torture. The voice of the master—as Lacan (1988) states in Seminar XI—"partly planetarized, even stratosphericized, by our machinery" (p. 247), impels jouissance. Its results are plain to see: the atrocious subjugation of masses, peoples, groups and individuals, tempted by the fascination of sacrificial torture and the imperative of jouissance: war, terrorism, collective impoverishment and climate catastrophe on the horizon keep the inhabitants of the planet suspended, as passive or active accomplices to its advances.
From Freud's Mass Psychology I want to emphasize that today, the consolidation of the masses lacks a vertical identification with the symbolic authority of the leader, and for that reason they open themselves to the danger of being subjugated by the figure of an obscene and ferocious Master who embodies the specter of the uncastrated Real Father: Once again, submission to the imperative of the superego that only responds to the mandate to “enjoy!” with the obscene: “I hear you! At your command!” Do you want proof of this?: millions of Argentines voting for the one who proposed to make their lives worse, to make their lives a living hell. And he did it. No, he didn't fool anyone, he said he would commit the atrocities and he’s doing it. And they voted for it, they submitted. I speak of Argentina and I write from Argentina, the country where Néstor Braunstein was born and from which he had to go into exile when, once again in our sad history, genocidal military men assumed power. Mexico welcomed him, as it did with so many exiles from different countries and thousands of Argentines. My recognition to Mexico and the Mexicans for having sheltered Néstor Braunstein with affection and respect and for having held in Mexico 2024 the international meeting, "Néstor A. Braunstein: Writings of Psychoanalysis."[4]
Translation from the Spanish by Thomas Marchevsky