Discourse - Communication - Conversation

Organização: Discourse and Rhetoric Group (DARG) and Communication and Media Analysis Research Group (CAMARG), Loughborough University
Local: Loughborough (Inglaterra)
Data: 21 a 23 de março de 2012

Discourse of hysteria as the logic of consumption

CASTRO, J. C. L.

Resumo: Lacan does not use the word “discourse” in a conventional way, but in the sense of social link. Thus, his theory of discourses, which dates from the late sixties, represents his most serious attempt to reflect about social matters. He proposes a matrix with the discourse of the master, the discourse of university, the discourse of hysteria, and the discourse of the analyst, later adding to those the discourse of capitalism. Each one is represented by an algorithm with four elements distributed in four places. The aim of this work is to understand the process of motivation of consumers on the light of the Lacanian concept of discourse of hysteria. Speaking broadly, in the discoursive framework of consumption, the consumer, as split subject, occupies the position of agent, driven by lack in the position of truth. By questioning the advertising, in the position of other of the discourse, about his own desire, the consumer enthrones it as master signifier. The same role is played by models used to seduce the consumer and by targets that he, in turn, is encouraged to seduce. It results from this process, in the position of production, a knowledge that attempts to explain the consumer desire and that, as battery of signifiers, or fantasy, projects itself on the universe of merchandises. The disjunction of impotence, in the bottom line, indicates the occurrence of partial enjoyment and at the same time of dissatisfaction, causing the process to repeat itself indefinitely. Exploring the intercession between the psychic and the social, this scheme helps to explain how the subject becomes a consumer. It is specially useful to analyse the period of construction of consumer society, which covers the second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, when consumption grows dramatically in importance, acquiring mass character and starting to vie with production as paradigm of social reproduction.

Palavras-chave: discourse of hysteria, consumption, advertising, Lacan.