‘I AM, THEREFORE I THINK’: Separating from the Symbolic Order

By Richard Koenigsberg

In order to analyze an ideology, one must establish a psychic location separate from the ideology; a place that is not attached to the ideology. Some contemporary thinkers believe that the self is nothing more than the "discourses that push and pull us." If mind is constituted by ideologies and discourse, from what place can we begin our project of analyzing ideologies and discourse?

People identify deeply with ideas or objects within the symbolic order that come to constitute the essence of self. People say I am "American" or "German" or "French" or "British" or "Jewish." People declare that they are "Democrats" or "Republicans;" on the "left" or "right." Surveys are undertaken to determine if people "believe in" or do not believe in God.

Ideologies are embedded within the fabric of culture. Often we are not aware of the presence of an ideology and how it impacts upon and shapes our thinking. Living within society, it is easy to become sucked into the vortex. To analyze ideologies, it is necessary to develop a method; a psychic stance that allows for a degree of distance.

Psychotherapists have developed techniques that allow them to listen dispassionately to patients as they enter their psychic worlds. We speak of the "clinical approach." Psychoanalysis uses the term "analytic neutrality" to suggest a balanced, non-biased approach to listening. When a patient engages in destructive or self-destructive behaviors, the psychologist does not approach the problem by asserting a moral judgment or becoming angry.

In the political domain, however, we have not developed a clinical stance toward analyzing ideologies that generate destructive and self-destructive forms of collective behavior. In politics, people are expected to "take a stand." Democratic ideology requires that people have "opinions" and act upon their beliefs. From the perspective of people who identify with a political position, a posture of clinical neutrality might be considered unseemly.

It would appear, however, that activist approaches have not been successful in bringing about change, much less in illuminating the sources of societal destruction and self-destruction. After the Holocaust, the phrase "never again" echoed throughout the world. Yet when new genocidal movements arose, people barely reacted. Recently, it seemed that most of the world was "anti-war." In spite of massive protests, a war nevertheless proceeded without resistance.

It is worthwhile to develop a psychological approach toward studying political forms of destruction and self-destruction. Our efforts will be guided by one value judgment: that the destruction of human life and property on a massive scale is not a good thing. This value judgment is not unlike one made by Medical Doctors seeking to prevent disease and death. A Medical Doctor does not get angry at the disease he is trying to cure; nor does he condemn his patient for having acquired the disease.

Political ideologies are something like physical diseases in that they are the cause of immense pain and suffering, and frequently lead to death. How does one go about "curing" the disease of political ideologies? In the first place, one has to know something about them and how they work. A doctor has to know a great deal about the human body, infectious agents, and many other things before he can begin to think about eliminating diseases and curing patients.

I suggest that we don’t know much about how political ideologies operate to cause destruction and self-destruction within societies. We don’t know much because we have not developed a method that allows us to distance ourselves from ideologies. How does one achieve psychic distance? It is necessary to cultivate and nurture a part of the mind separate from that part of the mind that has been colonized by discourse.

When I was in high school, most people did not pay much attention to the big, "outside world." Concrete existence was more than enough to handle. A few teachers encouraged students to become involved in "current events" and several students received delivery of the New York Times during homeroom each morning. Nevertheless, the "outer world" did not impinge upon us or define our sense of reality.

Nowadays, the outer world or current events seem much more prominent and powerful. This change relates, of course, to the rise of the "mass media of communication." The ubiquitous, never-ending messages flow into the self from every direction. The outer world seems much closer now. Indeed, some scholars conceive of messages emanating from the mass-media as the very essence of the "reality principle."

There is nothing wrong with "knowing what is going on in the world." However, given the pervasiveness and power of the media, it easy to become overwhelmed; caught up in the hysteria. Is it possible to observe ideologies of war, genocide and terror without being engulfed by them? Can we develop a method or stance that allows for dispassionate observation and analysis?

Buddhism is a psychological system and practice revolving around the concept of "non-attachment." Buddhism proposes a method that allows the self to detach from ideologies and belief-systems—seeking to locate a psychic space of separateness. The practice of Buddhism allows one to nurture and expand a part of the self that has not been colonized by the symbolic order.

Buddhism does not conceive of language or symbolic systems as constituting the essence of the self; rather seeks to discover or uncover the self at the place of concrete experience. Buddhism encourages us to embrace our presence within the current moment, immerse ourselves within this moment and become a witness to what is occurring right now. Buddhism seeks to concentrate upon and cultivate the current moment as the doorway to existence, reality and the self.

Whereas many currents in contemporary thought emphasize the embeddedness of the subject within culture, Buddhism focuses on that part of the self that is not bound to the symbolic order. Buddhism constitutes a method or practice for separating—detaching from culture. Buddhism embraces rather than shies away from the encounter with emptiness or non-being. Within the space of emptiness, language and the symbolic order dissolve, allowing one to return to silence—the essence of being.

Buddhism compares the self to a vast, empty sky. Ideas and thoughts are like clouds. Why cling to each passing cloud? From the space of the empty sky one may observe ideas and beliefs that inhabit the self without declaring that these ideas and beliefs are the essence of self. From within the space of emptiness, one may examine the nature and structure of the ideas and objects with which one had become identified. Buddhism represents a psychological method whose purpose is to facilitate disidentification with the symbolic order. Buddhism nurtures a place within the mind where ideologies and the discourses of society lose their power.

Buddhism embraces physical experience or proprioception as the source of self. The practice of Buddhism revolves around "sitting" and "breathing." One’s body is the infrastructure—foundation of existence. "Sitting" involves the continual act of being aware of one’s body in relationship to the ground and one’s immediate physical surroundings. Sitting, one concentrates on the muscles of one’s diaphragm as they generate breathe after breathe after breathe after breathe.

According to Buddhism, the self comes into being, not by virtue of one’s status as a "speaking being," but to the extent that one pays close attention to one’s posture and breathing. One focuses on the immediate moment—one’s thoughts and feelings as they occur in the immediate moment—and gradually becomes aware of one’s existence. Self derives from mindfulness. French philosophers with their emphasis upon language and symbolic processes descend from Descartes who declared, "I think, therefore I am." Far greater numbers of people in the civilized world believe it is more accurate to state, "I am, therefore I think."

Buddhism proposes that it is not possible to separate the mind from its organic source. Mind is contained, present within the body. If there is no separation between body and mind, how is it possible to speak of a ‘de-centered self’? Buddhism suggest that one becomes de-centered to the extent that one identifies with objects that are outside the self; objects that—fundamentally—are not the self.

Lacanians often state that in the absence of a capacity to bond with or bind to the symbolic order, the subject would become lost in a void, psychotic. Placing the void at the heart of its psychology, Buddhism conceives of emptiness as a state-of-being to be sought rather than shunned or feared. Buddhism asserts that emptiness is our true self or fundamental nature.

Achievement of a state of emptiness allows one to let go of "sticky attachments." Living comfortably within the space of emptiness, it is possible to release the symbolic objects that dwell within the self. Emptiness is conceived as spaciousness. Where ideas and words were, there shalt nothing be. Where nothing is, one can receive something new; what was not there before.

People attach to ideas and ideologies as if they were solid, substantial things. However, narratives (those grand and not so grand) collapse and crumble. The symbolic order appears disorderly and incoherent; even bizarre. Buddhist practice enhances the capacity to "abide where there is no abiding:" to maintain stability and self-constancy even as the house burns down.

Buddhism is the practice of non-attachment: learning to let go of that with which one had been identified. Buddhism is a method of releasing the symbolic order from within the self; learning to live in the empty space. Ideas and thoughts are like clouds passing through the sky. When one cloud disappears, another comes to take its place. There is no need to become attached, cling to, or become excited by each passing cloud.

To analyze ideologies of destruction and self-destruction, it is necessary to become capable of dis-identifying with them; of experiencing them as separate from the self. It is not productive to "fight" an ideology. In waging war against an ideology, one becomes part of it. War against the ideology becomes a struggle against part of the self.

One’s Buddha nature is the silent observer; that part of the self that has not—cannot—become colonized by the symbolic order. Buddhism means throwing away passionate attachments; learning to observe and empathize without becoming identified. As the world and its ideologies "scream bloody murder," one tunes into one’s original nature: the "unmoved" within the constantly moving.

It is necessary to distance oneself from "good" ideologies (those that one believes in) as well as from "evil" ideologies. Just because everyone else in society attaches to an ideology doesn’t mean one has to do so oneself. Just because everyone believes that something is true, this doesn’t mean it is true. Just because everyone believes that there is no truth, this doesn’t mean that truth doesn’t exist. Before Galileo, most people believed that the sun revolved around the earth.