Lacan’s Sardine Can

According to Lacan, in order for an object to count as an object a, two properties are necessary. First, the object must be a separable organ. Second, it must have a relation to lack.

Here is a story from Lacan about a sardine can.
“It is a true story. I was in my early twenties or thereabouts — and at that time, of course, being a young intellectual, I wanted desperately to get away, see something different, throw myself into something practical, something physical, in the country, say, or at the sea. One day, I was on a small boat, with a few people from a family of fishermen in a small port. At that time, Britanny was not industrialized as it is now. There were no trawlers. The fishermen went out in his frail craft at his own risk. It was this risk, this danger, that I loved to share. But it wasn’t all danger and excitement — there were also fine days. One day, then, as we were waiting for the moment to pull in the nets, an individual known as Petit-Jean, that’s what we called him — like all his family, he died very young from tuberculosis, which at that time was a constant threat to the whole of that social class – this Petit-Jean pointed out to me something floating on the surface of the waves. It was a small can, a sardine can. It floated there in the sun, a witness to the canning industry, which we, in fact, were supposed to supply. It glittered in the sun. And Petit-Jean said to me — _You see that can? Do you see it? Well, it doesn’t see you!

He found this incident highly amusing — I less so. I thought about it. Why did I find it less amusing than he? It’s an interesting question.

To begin with, if what Petit-Jean said to me, namely, that the can did not see me, had any meaning, it was because in a sense, it was looking at me, all the same. It was looking at me at the level of the point of light, the point at which everything that looks at me is situated — and I am not speaking metaphorically.

The point of this little story, as it had occurred to my partner, the fact that he found it so amusing and I less so, derives from the fact that, if I am told a story like that one, it is because I, at that moment — as I appeared to those fellows who were earning their livings with great difficulty, in the struggle with what for them was a pitiless nature — looked like nothing on earth. In short, I was out of place in the picture. And it was because I felt this that I was not terribly amused at hearing myself addressed in his humorous, ironical way.”

From Lacan’s book. – The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis.

Richard Dawkins on Darwinism

This is a segment from a BBC Documentary called “the genius of charles darwin”. Here, richard dawkins explained the essense of darwinism. And a good reason why we should be proud to be alive as part of humanity today.

Chinese in Malaysia

This was written in relation to the 天安门 incident in China in 1989. Taken from the book by Hou Kok Chung.

“I am not a Chinese.” 我一次又一次重复地说，心中开始升起一股莫名的愤怒。从伦敦到巴黎，只要有游行的地方，那些高大个子的洋人总要注意到角落里旁观瘦小的我。背囊重重地压在我肩上，几乎已不胜负荷。他们还是要加上一句：“你为什么只顾自己游荡而忘却你国家的苦难？”

我一个人继续着我的路途，能令我忧心如焚肯定不会是那个国家，那个国家根本不在我的记忆里。我只是个学生，我在实践行万里路以补读万卷书的不足。旅途结束后我还待完成的学业须回去继续。

可是，我真的如此安然吗？我真的如此满足于春光灿烂莺啼燕啭的一片它国风光吗？我真的完全无动于衷那片祖先住过，挥汗过，但如今却浸透血泪的土地？

他们又走过来问了：“军队开始镇压了，坦克辗过手无寸铁的学生啊！你伤不伤心？”

我默默地望着面前举标语而过的人群，感情失落在不知的方向。我一字一句的答，“I am a Malaysian.”

禤 素莱：《吉山河水去无声》 1993。

The big picture

This is a passage from Carl Sagan’s book Pale Blue Dot, and read by the author himself. A passage that moves me to tears when I first read it in his book. Someone made a slideshow out of it in youtube. Everyone should watch this and to read this book. And also other great books from him.

The ‘blue dot’ picture was taken by the voyager 1 space craft in 1990. A series of pictures were taken of the planets, not for scientific reason. The distance from earth? Approximately 4 billion miles away.

image taken from: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/photo_gallery/photogallery-solarsystem.html

The secret to happiness

The secret to happiness: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.

- Dan Dennett

Ikeda’s critique on Theravada

“Theravada School of Buddhism was, [。。。] essentially a monastic order whose members deliberately removed themselves from ordinary society so that they could practice their rigorous discipline. This type of religious organisation is by its very nature lacking in the proselytizing spirit and is difficult for the ordinary members of society to participate in.“

- Daisaku Ikeda. “Buddhism, the First Millinnium”.

Schechner’s culture

No culture is “pure’ ‘-that is, no culture is “itself.” Overlays, borrowings, and mutual influencings have always made every culture a conglomerate, a hybrid, a palimpsest. So much so that we probably should not speak of “culture” but of “cultures.” Racism is basically a myth of desired cultural purity played out against “others” who are perceived as being not only different but inferior.[..]

Attempting to fix cultures or stop them from changing is like trying to end or annihilate history.

 - Richard Schechner

Such a lovely way of putting it.