I was listening to an interview with Fredric Jameson recently and he said “I think I am too Lacanian to believe in identity.” The phrase was a bit glib: how can one not believe in identity? What does that mean? Jameson didn’t articulate what it meant. But if you have some familiarity with Lacan you can infer it means that Lacan’s theory of the subject is non-substantialist, Lacan reveals that identity is bound up with desire, and that desire upends the subject’s rational center or ego. But this insight requires an engagement with Lacan. I’m going to start a series of essays here on why Lacan matters for Marxists and why his thought helps us clarify political and specifically subjective problems that are essential to any Marxist practice and thus to any 21st century socialism. But first I want to start with an opening essay on why Lacan matters to me and why I believe that engaging Lacan—as Alain Badiou once remarked—is a mandatory activity for anyone that aims to be a philosopher.
I…