Hey City Zen!

I finally understood Lacan while traveling in Europe. Nationalism is the ego; the unconscious resistance. Nation-states and mother-languages define the matrix of the super-ego, where inherited world-views self-sustain in unstoppable chains of repetitious discourse. In this matrix we are links; condemned to pass along and repeat the inherited reactionary imaginations and illusions of the super-ego.

The only escape from this (centrifugal and divisive) attractor is a higher-level symbolic order to regulate the super-ego. Every social and moral advance requires a new higher-order symbolic constraint to the super-ego: democracy, civil rights, affirmative action, gay marriage, require a set of rules (e.g. a constitution, human rights) to operate.

The E. U. and the euro are an unprecedented, continent-wide attempt to advance Europe towards a more peaceful and prosperous reality. United we stand, but union requires higher-order symbolic control. It is fascinating to see the force of the super-ego working to resist it; highlight our differences, divide, divide until we fall. Has not Europe fallen too many times to the ego?

Lacan was right. Previous european leaders understood this. They were capable of explaining to people the need for the symbolic higher-order. Modern leaders seem only able to pander to the super-ego. Leaders need to be more than links.

Hay una discoteca por acqui?

Pet Shop Boys - Single-Bilingual