This Lacan in Scotland seminar 'The Social Superego and Liberation' took place on Zoom on Thursday 24 February 2022. Daniel Tutt speaks about the social superego and liberation in the context of late capitalism and from a psychoanalytic perspective. It is chaired by Dr Calum Neill, Director of Lacan in Scotland, and the presentation is followed by a discussion with the audience.

Video timestamps:

0:00 - Intro
02:06 - Presentation
58:14 - Discussion
1:32:32 - Closing Remarks

Description of the event:

Is there a predominant form of the superego under late capitalism? Lacan theorized the superego as a “demand to enjoy” and other thinkers from Étienne Balibar to Kojin Karatani read the superego as undergoing mutations of strengthening and weakening as an effect of political instability and crisis. If the concept is indeed political, how do we historically periodize the superego? This talk will look at the political basis of Freud’s discovery of the superego and how many of Freud’s concepts, from Oedipus, death drive to the superego, must be read with an explicitly political context in mind. If capitalism is characterized by a weakening of superego, what are the implications for liberation from oppressive institutional structures, and what do these insights mean for movements that seek to alter the status quo?

DANIEL TUTT is the author of the forthcoming book “Psychoanalysis and the Politics of the Family” with the Palgrave Lacan Series. His research is concerned with the intersection of contemporary politics, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He is a member of the Lacanian Forum of Washington, DC and host of the podcast Jouissance Vampires.

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