Cherchez la femme ( Anti-Oedipus ) -1st.part

Cherchez la femme ,
or the Symbolic in the myth of Oedipus (according to Cinema)

The myth of Oedipus is central for the psychoanalysis , but it is not the only myth that can help for the analysis of Human Psyche. The Symbolic power of Oedipus grows from Freud till now ,when he is really Oedipus Rex of “popular psychology” .

Oedipus Rex explains the whole symbolic order of the world ,filled with phalluses , penis envy and fear of castration. But in this world ,caged in passions and fear ,the rule of the old tyrant Oedipus is in it’s end. In search of other “working” myths in human psyche , brave researchers looks at the Cinema, as a infinite source of human characters. It’s turn out that Cinema gives more complete picture of the inner world than reading our dreams.

The popular Films are the dreams of civilisation , reading them helps understanding ,not only the individual ,but the psychology of the masses. Knowing Thyself is not enough now ,you need To Know the Crowd. So Cinema gives us infinite number of “preserved human emotions”.Using films as examples ,this text tries to fin strong opponent fo Oedipus in the face of a woman.

1.Impeachment for Oedipus

The first attack on Oedipus comes from Jaques Lacan in his “Ecrits”. Lacan states that Oedipus myth ,cannot keep the audience attention forever in a society where the meaning of the tragedy is lost more and more...One myth always goes with a some kind of ritual , but psychoanalysis is not Oedipus’s ritual.

Really , why Oedipus is still Rex? What keeps him on his tron, is it only the tradition ? May be the psychoanalysis in it claim for scientific validation is trying to squeeze human psychic in the old clothes of Oedipus ,The Shadow ,The Trickster ,The Old Wise man etc. According to semiotics the goal of every scientific theory is not explaining the world, but building it that way , so it can be explained. Against all the efforts the science is still an emotional human activity. The science is always humanitarian ,because is looking only for knowledge which “make sense” for humans.

Actually “Making Sense” is the main purpose of the whole human scientific and all kind of knowledge. The problem is that the life is a flux and everything changes with tie.The old orders ,laws ,formulas etc. , after being used for some time, eventually needs “refreshment” and “rearrangement”.

With the constant change in people, human psyche also needs new clothes to fit the her overweight figure. The new clothes are actually new myths and archetypes that are building bricks of the current culture ,or let’s say the Zeitgeist .
These myths are part of the Symbolic order of the civilisation , and if they are not “updated” on time , the civilisation itself has “discontents”. In “The Civilisation and it’s (more and more) discontents “ d-r Freud himself leaves a sign where to look for the new myth , which will take down Oedipus. This is the myth of Orpheus , which will be revealed later.

It turns out that the human psyche can grasp the world without it’s Symbolic order , that’s why the myths and archetypes are needed all the time. The Symbolic is the realisation of the archetype in one new mythology , it is a “Matrix”- virtual world which is based on reason ,not on chaos and chance. In the “Matrix” the life has meaning , but in order to exist ,the “Matrix” needs our energy to support it. If we accept a man as a simple battery , it purpose would be to supply energy and when he is empty, to be recharged.

The human life is constant circle of investments of emotional energy ,some of them are good, they bring interest, and some are bad loses. The man invests energy into the “Matrix” , but receives back too . To do that he needs the presence of a certain images an forms in the “Matrix”. Their symbolic value is so important for the human existence as food in the real world.

Freud and Jung revived the mythological understanding of the inner world , a virtual inner image which people can “project” onto reality. The problem is in the growing demand of stable powerful myths , that are needed for the ever growing demands of the psyche. The power of a myth is equal to the amount of emotional energy and fate invested in it by the people. Gradually the fate is lost and even the quantity of myths is growing , their quality is not , or they become less powerful.
The demand of myths looks so crucial even in 21st. Century , that one can say that we never left the “mythological time” of Homer. In that kind of time , the myth are “real and true” for the people’s inner world , even not real in material reality.

So if something is Real for the psyche , it is Real enough for us . This brings the notion of the platonic idea of the only one ideal absolute .
This concept is accepted on fate by people , who always try to find “the best” , “the ultimate” , “the one and only “ etc. Actually everybody finds his own reality , man can create his own truth. The feeling of reality in certain moment and the emotional investment in that moment , is the only proof of reality for a man.
We life in infinite number of realities and all of them are truth for somebody , it depends of the viewpoint.

Even a broken clock I exact two times a day , is the old saying. Michael Gladwell is speaking about this shift in the culture from the idea of the One Perfect Thing , their isn’t perfect Pepsi , there are perfect Pepsis , with different taste and sugar content for different tastes. And this is not all , time changes everything . The judgement of real and truth is not only individual, but is changing with time.
Material reality exists only an instant ,before disappearing in the infinite flow of the Time. Time is the only reality that we know , time is the ultimate judge of everything. Time is also the ultimate terror for people , trying to stop their precious moment of happiness.

Art is one way to slow the time , to freeze images of emotional life energy for centuries. The movies teach us how to create and cherish these images in time . Cinema is an art which can save us from the inescapability of time, it show us how to live slow. The Time can create reality ,if given enough time everything is possible and nothing is constant and certain - no laws , morals, meaning , reason , logic etc. These categories are temporary ,they change with the time.

According to Monkey and Infinity Theorem from sir Arthur Eddington (the scholar who proved Einstein’s Theory of Relativity ) : If we leave a “herd” of monkeys to hit randomly the keys of typewriters ,it is almost certain that one day ,given enough tie ,they will write the full works of Shakespeare . So for know is it clear that even the myth of Oedipus looks stable and certain to fit human psyche for some time ,this is not some archetype recollected from previous lives , it is not an absolute law of psychology.

But is it possible to have a absolute certain scientific theory in general? Kurt Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem states that : None complete theory ,which express elementary arithmetical truth, can not be fully logical and complete at the same time. The key work here is again time , it can be both at the same time. There is time for everything , as it said in Ecclesiastes . It is mathematically impossible to have Theory of Everything ,things Stephen Hawking , which can be stated with a finite and final number of principles. It turn out that science is long way from the absolute certain that often claims . Much of that certainty in science is emotional, it is the ancient human fear from the cosmic chaos.

So science is trying to “make sense” it’s way , like religion and art do. They all share the use of a “great secret” which will explain the chaos. “ The secret “ is something like the secrets of magic ,they keep the audience amazed as a secrets , but once revealed it turns out it’s just an illusion . People enjoy to believe in absurdity , but in science and religion after the illusion is dead the fate dies too. Only the art and the Cinema in particular are going further.

Movies are using “the secret “ tool and the revealing of the illusion brings no disappointment but more interest. Cinema accepts the Chaos through catharsis , the films are not necessarily looking for order and meaning. Even more , sometimes they are touching the ancient philosophy of emptiness and nothingness , which is the eternal principle of the cosmos.

Director’s like the holy trinity: ”Ozu ,Dreyer and Bresson” managed to reach real state of complete peace in their films , the viewer of these films almost feels like in a state of “nirvana” . Cinema can be much more than mere entertainment ,it can be total revelation and salvation from the burdens of material reality . It is the way how to watch , think and speak about Cinema , the process is like hypnosis where you are free of “yourself” and “the world” , free to feel the core of existence.

The cinematic experience is an ultimate “gaze at the abyss” , but without the madness of Nietzsche . Instead the end is cathartic emptiness and peace , harmony with the eternal flux of universe . Cinema is a religion , but without God .
The concept of god is washed by the ancient idea of Dao - pure energy , path , enlightenment ,harmony with the flow of the universe , emptiness , something that can’t be describe ,but only felt .

It’s not a surprise that the “apostles” of Cinema , devoted their lifes to this path. Yasujiro Ozu’s grave in Engaku-ji temple, Kita Kamakura , Japan , famously ,doesn’t bear his own name , but the symbol “ Mu “ ,instead.
This is a full selfless dedication to a cause , to dissolve Yourself in space , complete peace. “Mu” or “Wu” , stand for void , none , no meaning . Mu is connected with “Wu Wei” concept of doing without effort , go with the natural flow , do not oppose Yourself to natural force .

“Do or not do . Don’t try “ says master Yoda “Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealously. The shadow of greed, that is.” Believed or not , Jediism is a registered non-theistic new religious movement ,over 500,000 people declared their religion as Jedi . They just felt “the Force” in Cinema.

The revelation of the Cinema is like religious act of purifying .It follows the classic Hollywood Script writing plan: “ Peace - Accident - Reaction - Peace again “. The so called “Hollywood happy end” is actually the most natural end of everything . Everything ends in peace . War and peace ,again and again ....in infinite life circle .

This is the principle of life ,of art and of Cinema . This is also the principle of Hitchcock’s famous MacGuffin . It is some secret that everybody are chasing after ,but it’s never revealed , because the more important are people looking for the secret ,that the secret itself. Actually the characters are looking for themself’s , not the secret ,the film structure is a journey of self searching , so it is natural to reach peace , at the end.

The same theme is found in Umberto Eco’s book “Foucault's Pendulum ” ,where three friends created their own conspiracy theory - prophecy , called “The Plan” . For their terror it turned out that the Plan is true and holds the secret to control the world.The Fiction becomes reality and cost the life of Belbo and the health of Diotallevi ,who got cancer. At the end Casaubon finds out the emptiness of the Secret and reflects about the power of imagination and the reality of fiction.
It turns out that people can create reality if they believe in their creations.

The “famous” self-help book “The Secret” claims the same magic power which people posses . It is called The Law of Attraction : 1. Know exactly what you want. 2.Ask the universe for it. 3.Feel, behave and know as if the object of your desire is already yours (visualize). 4.Be open to receive it and let go of (the attachment to) the outcome.

So if you “ really ,really “ want something it will come to you eventually . The "Secret" is inside us. With the Secret inside every man alive Plato’s ideas of absolutes looks outdated . Accepting the new post platonic reality , we should abandon all labels like - the best ,the one and only , the absolute , number one ...... Among all others there isn’t a perfect myth that can fit the ever growing and changing human psyche , even the poor Oedipus.

Of course Oedipus is not dumped ,but the idea is that other myth can be use to explain the psyche ,or even that every human myth created by man contains the secrets of it’s creator.

It is like the apple seed contains the idea of a tree and an apple , and every human cell contains human DNA , generations back . This brings the idea that every stable in time and popular among masses of people human myth contains the structure of it’s creators mind.

Every cultural artefact ,every myth ,narrative ,novel , painting ,musical peace and more than all film (I think) can be use as step for the path of self knowledge. The true wisdom is not in the thick books it is everywhere ,every good joke contains same information about human mind as a philosophical thesis.

The old Oedipus did his job for years ,but the problem is that he is no longer helping understand the psyche , but ruling again as a Rex . People just reached Lacan’s “mirror stage” in their path of self knowledge , it means that when people already know about Oedipus complex they start to “see” it everywhere,to look for it .
It is a self-suggestion , caused by the Observer effect , the impact of observing a physical system .

People can be an subject and object of the observation at the same time.
As Observers of our self’s we are always affected by it and in a same time it affects us , it sounds like non sense , but writing about it I suffer the same problem .

As we know from Freud ,learning the truth about human mind and psyche lead us through the nightmare of existential abyss ,but if we endure this terrible knowledge ,we hope that we will find the peace at the end.

“No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human beast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed.”
Sigmund Freud , Complete Psychological Works, Dora (1905)