The grammatical voice of the drive

pp. 35-47

in: Raul Moncayo, Knowing, not-knowing, and jouissance, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

For Lacan the drive functions within language, the Symbolic order, and the order of desire as a human and cultural phenomenon. The constant pressure of the drive, for example, Lacan understands not as biological impulse, but as the demands of the subject of the drive mediated by the demand of the Other. Lacan defines the aim of the drive as satisfaction rather than pleasure, and satisfaction is linked to the category of the impossible and the Real. The Real of the drive is something different from both hallucinatory wish fulfilment and the biology of need. Any object can be used for the purposes of the Real of the drive and not only the object of fantasy or of biological need. Sublimation is what elevates an object to the dignity of das Ding. There is something dignified not only in Culture but also in the drive as the "No-thing".