For Ricardo Piglia, the short form [1] is a literary composition to find the right phrase, the precise idea and
the clear picture. For example, Joyce's epiphany, a text
that can’t be interpreted immediately, that moves away from meaning and delays
it.
Similarly, we might think text
messages -sms- and also twits in Twitter-140 characters long- as short forms as defined by Piglia. Even more, we risk saying: nowadays, a time when the Other does not exist, sms and tweets are a form of the love letter [2] .
It goes without saying that almost
no one sends letters by snail mail, which is a shame.
But these new short forms of
writing seek to achieve a text that escapes, at least for a moment, the meaning,
and cherishes something far beyond the communicative scope of a message.
In a privileged way, sms
demonstrate Lacan’s idea that communication as a relationship between a sender and
a receiver does not exist, because what communication is about is an
interchanging between meaning and enjoyment that does not seek to transfer meaning,
but looks for some way to enjoy and to share that enjoyment. They have no sense but only of something that remains caught in the letter[A1] and that justifies the fact that sms
are kept – I would almost say treasured- by the people and reread after being
sent and after being received.
That is something observable, the
sms is stored as valuable, examined, reviewed in its syntax, spelling and even
in its typography, as it is not the same if it is written in uppercase or lowercase, if you use an abbreviation, or
neologisms, as each of these elements is a sign liable to be interpreted.
For many, to delete a sms from the
phone memory implies an effort, and the subject will only do it when the memory
is full, when the message has become obsolete or when it can be read by others.
The sms requires attention to
detail, precision, and in a way that is not done at all in the spoken language,
much less in the phone conversations.
I will cite two examples that
arise from analysis
sessions[A2] . A man goes out on a Saturday with friends, gets drunk, after having fun,
being with girls, and so on, half an hour passes and he starts to send sms. After a certain point, some sort of hunting begins, in the form of sms. Something happens that is like entering a dimension different from the
meaning of "having a wild night out", because, through text messaging,
begins a hidden meaning, not shared with the group of friends, something that
belongs to the array of the forbidden, and not because it is prohibited, but
because it is beyond common codes. He himself feels different and feels a certain pleasure of which he will
regret the next day because of the consequences that it brings.
A woman, in similar circumstances,
receives a message at five o'clock, when she is already in her apartment, from
a man who wants to stop by. The words written on the sms are
very important, "stop by" he says, and that turns into a joint of
meanings, which leaves her position towards the man uncovered and clarifies
that he does not want a lot of commitment; "stop" means what it says,
but it is located, as an epiphany, in the lack of immediate sense.
The response to the message must
be carefully thought out also, because it must imply a yes, but not a definitive
one.
You could say that these examples
are not entirely different to what may be a simple phone call, and it is true,
technical resources have never ceased to be used for seduction, for love, for linking
forms that are not same as those resulting of direct communication.
However, I believe, and thinking
about the new symbolic forms in the 21st century and the consequences this has
for the cure, that we might think the sms as the current form of the love
letter.
The love letter, Lacan highlights [3], has a function. Clearly, the letter does not have the same function as verbal
communication. It's a collectible, is re-readable,
may be, I could almost say, studied and be an object for investigation. If words are gone with the wind, the love letter is not, it is fixed,
offers a possibility to analyze and retain enjoyment. And we can make sort of an
hyperbole saying that every letter is a love letter.
We will also use Lacan's
expression that the letters always arrive at destination [4], not because they cannot get lost
in the way sometimes, but because the letter always, if we accept that the
meaning is achieved only
when the encounter with the other and in inverted form[A3] , is addressed to the writer, or
more precisely, is addressed to the big Other who does not exist but is a
function of the subject - so that the love letter, as the diary and other forms
of writing, always regain the enjoyment that the subject acquires in his
attempt to obtain meaning, going though the other
in retrospective [5] .
And we have wondered why privileging
using words in a world where image has allegedly imposed over the signifier,
where the imaginary would have a much greater cogency that the symbolic in
social relationships and where it is assumed that reading would definitely leave
its place to screens that project immediate images to forget the symbolic
status of human being-and yet, the love letter survives in the form of sms.
Some of the features sms have were
announced by Italo Calvino in his Six
Memos for the Next Millennium [6], lightness, quickness,
exactitude, multiplicity, visibility...
Proposals that analysts should
take into account when thinking about the role of psychoanalysis in the 21st
century.
Miller analyses Lacan's love
letter to say that this is the sign of love [7]. Taking that into account, we have the feeling that the
sms exceeds audiovisual forms because it addresses something real, preventing
the simulation image imposes.
The video, however realistic, Skype
or Messenger, is not the same as physical presence. It’s missing aura, W. Benjamin would say [8]. A psychoanalyst could not analyze via Skype, and cannot do it by phone,
because these forms are impure, do not involve the body as a real presence
essential to the dynamics of enjoyment.
Let's make a hypothesis: this characteristic
of the sms, being a sign of love, is a
nod that man has found for the survival of the symbolic order in the 21st
century.
We cannot fail to mention the
importance of these signs that travel from cell to cell in the Middle East and North Africa . There seems that sms are the cause and the means of a rhizome of revolts
that put an end to the medieval monarchs that were going for centuries. As if the technologies of global capitalism, Internet in particular, but
particularly the forms of personal communication such as mobile phones and sms had
the ability to question the contemporary subject in their ability to take
responsibility for a statement, after which , the Other does not exist.
Piglia, in The Last Reader [9], tells us about the seductive power of word, quoting
Kafka: "Could it be true that you
can attract a girl with writing”? asks Kafka. But one thing that Piglia stands out is that it is not just about the
seduction to be found in the writing, but it is a form that allows the reader,
as every reader, to be present in its absence.
Present in the absence. It also something that Miller highlights, the first thing that needs to
be said in the love letter, is "you're not here." If I'm writing a letter it is because you are not here.
The famous letters from Kafka to
Felice Bauer, nearly three hundred in one year, have a specific recipient: someone
(who at first is almost unknown) expects the letters, he endures, and this word
is critical, he endures the consequences, it is about people who do not see
each other, or rarely do, and above all, they write to each other. Seduction and reading have a relationship. The lovers meet in the text
they read.
This correspondence is something given
to read in order to seduce, but not only that, it has also the function of
keeping away the Other.
This is a fundamental point of
what we want to salvage here regarding the subject's strategy in the 21st
century, it is not just about seduction but also implies, as well to link the other,
to keep him at distance. Thus, we think to find there a
sort of defense.
Demand for love, Miller emphasizes,
is "unconditional demand for the
presence and the absence," as Lacan says in The direction of the cure...
Why demand "absence"? Presence is the pure calling for the Other to be there and give signs of
their presence; that at least they say they are there, giving signs of their
existence; that they respond, then, to the call, or that they simply call to
say "Here I am.” Now,
the fact that the Other says “Here I
am" certainly only has its vital value if the Other is not there [10] .
Thus the prominent role of the
letter in love affairs, since, in general, a letter is only sent to someone who
is not there. “The absence of the Other,” says Miller,
“is also mine, and every love letter says: ‘You are not here’ and in your
absence from me and in my absence from you, we are together, you're with me.”
Then, the current prevalence of
these media, such as sms, chat, e-mail, perhaps is due to that they allow keep
some of that absence and that distance in a time when, as a kind of total institution [11] , we are pushed into a transparent body and the total presence of the
voice and the look. The subject thus finds a way to
keep a distance and allow the Other to exist
as such, i.e. as a kind being.
[1] Piglia, Ricardo. Short Forms. Anagram, Barcelona
[2] Miller, Jacques Alain. The Other does not exist and their ethics committees,
Paidos
[3] Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar 20, yet. Paidós
[4] Lacan, Jacques. Seminar on the Purloined Letter. Writings 1
[5] Lacan, Jacques, Writing 2. Subversion of the subject and dialectic of desire in the unconscious. XXI Century
[6] Calvino, Italo. Six Memos for the Next Millennium. Siruela. Madrid
[7] Miller, Jacques Alain. Sign of Love http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/psicologia/9-163348-2011-03-03.html
[8] Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. http://diegolevis.com.ar/secciones/Infoteca/benjamin.pdf
[9] Piglia, Ricardo. The last reader. Anagram, BA, 2008
[10] Miller, ibm
[11] Goffman, Erving. Internships, On the characteristics of total institutions. Routledge
Publishers
Traducción: Lucía Carolina Vidal
perfecto, muy buen articulo .... saludos ...
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