YoungFreudiansFall (1) .pdf

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Table  of  Contents  
 
Page  3:  Echoes  of  Narcissus  by  Matthew  Zavislan  
 
Page  9:  Us  Mechanic  Ghosts:  objectsubject  and  spacetime,  
multidimensional  lack  by  Eliot  Rosenstock  
 
Page  12:  The  Materialization  of  Psychical  Phenomena  as  
Magic  by  Christian  Gabriel  Smith  
 
Page  16:  The  Self-­‐‑Regulating  Power  of  Humor  from  a  
Psychoanalytic  Perspective  by  Albert  Fish  
 
Page  24:  Bertha  Pappenheim;  Hallucinatory  Manifestation  
of  Black  Snakes  Juxtaposed  to  the  Phallus  and  Repressed  
Sexual  Feelings  by  Austin  Gallant  
 
Page  26:  Swallowing  One’s  Parents/Under  the  Skin  and  
Behind  the  Unconscious  by  Riley  Elder  
 
Page  30:  On  the  Perversion  of  Enjoyment  by Victor Bethonico
Foresti de Oliveira Castro  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Echoes  of  Narcissus  
By  Matthew  Zavislan

 

(René-Antoine Houasse, Narcissus,1688-1689)
 
The  name  given  to  this  fragmented  body  of  texts—Young  Freudians—  is  a  name  in  
which  a  curious  directive  is  heard:  Go  back  to  Freud;  but  also,  make  him  young  again.  Go  
back,  read  his  texts,  but  don’t  just  read  them  as  artifacts  of  a  dead  history.  The  theoretical  
demand  made  of  this  journal  is  not  the  reconstruction  of  a  historical  Freud,  but  the  creation  
of  new  forms  out  of  the  discursive  possibilities  his  texts  opened  up.  One  must  thus  
understand  the  creative  potential  of  such  an  endeavor  as  essentially  metamorphic:  a  
transformation  of  Freud  that  goes  beyond  the  Freudian  corpus  by  taking  up  the  very  
discourse  it  instantiates.  The  task  of  the  theoretician  can  no  longer  be  concerned  with  a  
radically  original  creation  ex  nihilo—as  perhaps  Freud  was—but  with  the  taking  up  of  
another’s  voice  in  order  to  situate  new  meanings  in  the  hollows  left  by  the  reverberation  of  
these  discourses  on  the  surfaces  of  different  individuals  and  histories.  The  return  to  Freud  
demanded  by  this  journal  is  thus  not  simply  a  matter  of  going  back  to  a  past  in  which  
everything  was  already-­‐‑said,  but  in  finding  within  this  already-­‐‑said  the  echoes  of  one’s  own  
saying.  If  post-­‐‑modernism  has  reduced  everything  to  pastiche,  it  is  only  in  the  inspired  and  
transformative  repetitions  of  an  already  existent  discourse  that  we  may  bring  youthfulness  
to  the  psychoanalytic  discourse  Freud  made  possible.    
 
But  I  wish  to  begin  by  returning  to  another  youth,  so  very  close  to  Freud,  although  
born  so  much  before  him.    The  story  is  one  relayed  to  us  by  Ovid1:  In  Boeotia,  a  beautiful  
boy  was  born  to  the  nymph  Liriope  following  her  rape  by  the  river-­‐‑god  Cephisus.  When  this  
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 I  am  taking  the  liberty  of  not  citing  each  and  every  line  by  Ovid,  as  all  quotations  occur  from  the  same  2  pages  on  Book  3  of  the  
Metamorphoses.  Quotations,  unless  otherwise  attributed,  should  be  presumed  to  be  Ovidian.    

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anxious  mother  asked  the  seer  Tiresias  if  her  child  would  live  a  long  and  happy  life,  the  seer  
replied  that  it  would  be  so  only  “if  he  never  knows  himself.”  This  child  was  called  Narcissus.  
As  Narcissus  reached  maturity,  his  beauty  attracted  the  attention  of  many  young  men  and  
women.  And  yet,  Ovid  tells  us,  “in  [Narcissus’]  slender  form  was  pride  so  cold  that  no  youth,  
no  maiden  touched  his  heart.”  Eventually,  one  of  these  scorned  suitors  turned  their  hands  
to  heaven  and  prayed  to  the  goddess  Nemesis  that  Narcissus—cold  as  he  was  towards  the  
love  offered  to  him—be  in  turn  cursed  to  love  only  himself  and  yet  be  forever  frustrated  in  
the  consummation  of  that  love.  Nemesis  heard  this  prayer  and  so,  one  day,  as  Narcissus  
was  bending  down  to  drink  from  a  clear  spring  he  caught  a  glimpse  of  his  reflection  borne  
in  its  waters.    
The  tragedy  of  this  tale  is  well  known:  Narcissus  finds  himself  besotted  with  the  
image  of  the  beautiful  boy  he  sees  staring  back  at  him.    He  admires  himself,  taking  note  of  
his  own  beauty  and  whispering  words  of  love  to  the  boy  staring  back  up  at  him.  At  first  he  
rejoices,  because  he  sees  the  boy  in  the  pool  repeat  his  words  of  love,  and  rise  to  meet  the  
kisses  Narcissus  would  plant  upon  him.  Yet  each  time  Narcissus  reaches  out  towards  his  
image  it  eludes  him.  Foregoing  all  sustenance,  Narcissus  wastes  away  staring  vainly  and  
hopelessly  at  his  beloved  image  reflected  up  at  him  from  the  crystalline  waters  of  the  pool.  
Finally  realizing  that  he  loves  his  own  image,  Narcissus  finds  morbid  comfort  in  that  fact  
that  he  and  his  beloved  reflection  “shall  die  together  in  one  breath.”      
Even  on  this  basis  of  this  roughest  of  outlines  it  should  be  easy  for  even  the  least  
familiar  reader  to  see  how  the  Narcissus  myth  became  a  fertile  ground  for  the  
extrapolation  of  psychoanalytic  concepts.    Not  only  does  the  myth  dramatize  the  
identification  of  the  child  with  his  own  specular  image,  eventuating  the  formation  of  an  
image-­‐‑ideal  of  the  self  that  would  become  the  locus  for  the  management  of  sensory  and  
affective  perceptions—the  ego—but  the  resigned  suicide  of  Narcissus  who  would  rather  
die  than  separate  from  his  beloved  reflection  reveals  and  foretells  the  “death  instinct”  
which  operates  at  the  heart  of  this  living  body  of  erotically  charged  identifications.    It  
should  thus  come  as  no  surprise  that  Narcissus  is  a  common—indeed,  a  near  ubiquitous—
mythological  fixture  of  psychoanalytic  writing.    
Indeed,  Freud  employed  the  metaphor  of  a  “primary  narcissism”  to  describe  the  
tendency—  notably  found  in  infants,  magic  users,  and  neurotics—to  overestimate  the  
reach  and  potency  of  one’s  desires  to  the  extent  that  they  become  indistinguishable  from  
the  world  they  inhabit.  At  a  formal  level,  this  narcissistic  tendency  allowed  man  to  cope  
with  his  environment  by  solidifying  an  image  of  his  place  in  it.  Thus,  even  at  the  moment  of  
catastrophe  man’s  place  is  reaffirmed:  this  catastrophe  was  meant  for  him,  was  a  reflection  
of  his  own  wrongdoing.  As  a  real  object,  the  world  is  mute.  It  speaks  only  when  imbued  and  
invested  with/by  our  desires.  .  Narcissus  sees  his  image  as  an  object,  but  it  is  the  non-­‐‑object  
par  excellence—in  Ovid’s  words:  “a  bodiless  dream”.    Yet,  in  order  that  this  mirrored  
relation  between  self  and  world  to  be  maintained,  one  must  set  up  resistances  against  
those  forces  which  would  disturb  the  tranquility  of  this  reflection.    This  site  of  resistance  is  
the  ego.  Thus,  in  the  narcissistic  mode,  the  fantasy  object  displaces  the  real  object  in  order  
to  uphold  the  unity  of  the  ego  and  its  world    
Following  this  extrapolation,  Jacques  Lacan  posited  that  during  the  mirror  stage  of  
development  in  which  a  child  first  recognizes  his  own  image  in  the  mirror,  the  libidinal  
force  of  the  identification  with  this  image  is  that  “in  comparison  with  the  still  very  
profound  lack  of  coordination  in  his  own  motor  function,  that  gestalt  is  an  ideal  unity  
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(Lacan,  113).”    Here  the  mirror  stage  appears  as  an  ideal  unity  compensating  for  the  lack  of  
control  the  child  has  over  its  body.  However,  this  function  of  the  ego-­‐‑image  is  not  limited  to  
the  child,  and  it  does  not  take  any  amount  of  effort  to  see  here  the  precursor  for  the  lack  of  
control  over  one’s  body  when  afflicted  with  the  pains  of  aging  and  the  inevitability  of  loss  
(or  the  whole  host  of  other  ways  in  which  the  body  is  fragmented  by  its  encounter  with  the  
world).  While  our  motor  coordination  improves,  our  control  over  our  bodily  and  affective  
mechanisms  is  never  total,  exposed  as  they  are  to  the  outside  of  oneself.    
“In  analytic  experience,”  Lacan  concludes,  the  ego  represents  the  center  of  all  
resistances  to  the  treatment  of  symptoms,”  because  we,  like  Narcissus,  invest  so  much  of  
ourselves  into  the  constancy  or  clarity  of  the  image  we  have  of  ourselves  (Lacan,  118).  Now  
let  us  recall  that  in  Ovid’s  tale,  it  is  the  tears  of  Narcissus  that  disturb  the  reflecting  pool.  
When  he  cries,  unable  to  attain  that  which  he  desires,  “his  tears  ruffled  the  water,  and  
dimly  the  image  came  back  from  the  troubled  pool.  In  order  to  maintain  sight  of  his  beloved  
image,  Narcissus  thus  must  to  dam  himself  up,  lest  his  emotion  overcome  the  beloved  other  
to  which  he  responds.  Thus  we  can  see  the  faculty  of  repression  at  work:  when  the  
situation  in  which  one  finds  themselves  runs  contrary  to  the  ego-­‐‑identifications  Narcissus  
has  made  for  himself,  the  clarity  of  the  ego  is  obscured.      Were  the  other  of  reflection—the  
narcissistic  ego—a  real  other  of  flesh  and  blood,  then  Narcissus’  tears  would  not  so  easily  
efface  them.  And  yet,  so  simple  and  straightforward  a  claim  itself  risks  obscuring  the  
reflection  we  have  here  started  for  Narcissus,  himself  of  flesh  and  blood,  certainly  seeks  to  
efface  himself.      
Ovid  proclaims  that  the  tale  of  Narcissus  introduced  a  new  insanity:  one  in  which  
only  the  displacement  or  repression  of  feeling  would  enable  the  pursuit  of  the  object  that  
elicited  such  a  feeling.  In  order  for  Narcissus  to  gaze  into  the  eyes  of  his  beloved  he  had  to  
hold  back  his  tears—of  joy  or  sorrow—that  mark  the  emotion  which  impels  him  towards  
himself.    Under  his  own  spell,  the  consummation  of  love  Narcissus  longs  for  forever  denied  
to  him  by  himself  who  sought  it,  in  the  very  gesture  by  which  the  beloved  was  designated  
as  an  object  of  love.    Yet  it  is  precisely  this  ambivalence  with  regard  to  his  image  that  binds  
Narcissus  to  himself.  His  moment  of  identification  with  his  image  is  also  a  moment  of  
alienation.  Certainly  Narcissus  professes  his  singular  love  for  this  image  of  himself,  but  the  
very  richness  of  this  love  is  his  poverty.  “While  he  thus  grieves  […  Narcissus]  beats  his  bare  
breast  with  pallid  hands”  until  his  white  skin  turns  red  and  bruised.  He  resents  himself  for  
letting  his  image  fade.  Or  perhaps  he  resents  his  image  for  fading,  or  the  spring  for  not  
remaining  still  despite  his  tears.      
Love  thus  oscillates  with  hatred.  Without  the  mirror  to  provide  him  with  the  
persistence  of  his  image,  Narcissus’  aggression  is  vented  elsewhere.  The  moment  of  
identification  is  simultaneous  with  a  moment  of  accusation.  He  resents  the  distance  of  his  
beloved,  resents  him  for  not  being  able  to  embrace  him.  But  also  resents  him  for  his  
closeness:  “I  would  that  what  I  love  were  absent  from  me,”  so  that  he  could  consummate  
his  love  for  himself  without  also  effacing  himself.  If  only  “I  might  be  parted  from  my  body!”  
If  only…  then  Narcissus  wouldn’t  need  cry,  and  his  tears  would  not  disturb  the  reflecting  
pool.    
Narcissus  might  wish  that  “he  that  is  loved  might  live  longer”  than  himself,  but  
knowing  that  he  will  die  along  with  his  image  Narcissus  wills  their  mutual  death.  Thus  the  
strange  simultaneity  of  suicide  and  sacrifice  that  Lacan  finds  in  narcissism,  or  that  Freud  
identifies  with  a  death  instinct  operating  at  the  core  of  erotic  attraction:  a  devastation  one  
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cannot  bear  but  cannot  bear  being  without;  a  desire  for  a  face  to  see  itself  immobilized  in  a  
persona—a  death  mask.    Narcissus’  recognition  of  himself  is  thus  simultaneously  also  a  
misrecognition;  not  just  because,  as  Lacan  puts  it,  “man’s  ego  is  never  reducible  to  his  lived  
experience,”  but  more  fundamentally  because  the  face  in  the  mirror  is  simply  the  of  a  unity  
that  never  existed  as  such.      
The  self-­‐‑image  is  not  a  singular  identification  made  on  account  of  some  fundamental  
truth  concerning  oneself,  but  is  rather  a  series  of  objectifications  of  moments  and  others,  
like  photographs  snatched  from  the  void.  Like  a  photograph—which  is  not  the  simple  
capture  of  a  frozen  moment,  but  the  creation  of  a  new  context  taken  out  of  context—  these  
objectifications  of  himself  don’t  spring  spontaneously  from  the  desire  of  the  youth,  as  if  he  
were  the  agent  of  creation  in  his  own  ego.  Rather,  as  he  looks  in  the  mirror  Narcissus  
“admires  himself  for  what  he  himself  is  admired.”  He  immediately  looks  at  himself  a  certain  
way:  admiring  his  skin,  his  jaw  and  his  hair.  He  is  already  looking  at  himself  as  if  through  
another.  His  autoeroticism  is  mediated,  and  hence  no  longer  truly  autoerotic:  it  requires  an  
other.  
Yet  this  might  seem  puzzling,  as  I  have  up  to  this  point  insinuated  that  Narcissistic  
reflection  takes  place  in  the  absence  of  an  other,  there  were  a  deluded  boy  falls  in  love  with  
a  phantasm  of  himself.  Certainly  there  are  others,  but  Narcissus  scorns  them.  Certainly  they  
do  not  mediate  his  desire.  So  where  in  our  tale  does  this  other  appear?    Narcissus  “admires  
himself  for  what  he  himself  is  admires”  and  not  only  is  there  thus  the  presence  of  the  other  
and  his  desires,  but  also  a  strange  doubling  of  Narcissus  himself.  He  sees  himself  in  the  pool  
and,  in  seeing  himself,  sees  the  other  see  him.  He  admires  himself,  and  so  also  sees  that  this  
object  of  desire  desires  him  also.  Narcissus  cannot  see  himself  as  immediately  desirable,  
but  rather  only  on  the  condition  of  being  seen  as  such  by  this  reflective  other  which  he  has  
created  for  himself.  (Is  this  experience  so  foreign  to  us?  Are  we  too  not  the  creators  of  
phantasms  in  the  reflective  surface  of  our  minds,  which  can  assure  or  attack  us;  validate  or  
gnaw  away  at  self-­‐‑reflection  we  have  hoped  to  freeze  for  ourselves.)  
However,  as  should  be  clear  this  reflective  phantasm  is  not  the  other.  Even  
Narcissus  feels  the  gravity  of  this  truth:  “Oh  I  am  he!  I  have  felt  it…”  Is  the  mediation  thus  
wholly  imaginary?  Certainly  not.  Rather  the  other  has  escaped  reflection  precisely  because  
it/they  are  the  surface  upon  which  reflection  is  cast.  I  speak  here  of  the  waters  of  the  spring  
upon  which  Narcissus  sees  his  reflection.  Julia  Kristeva  quips:  as  “a  symbol  of  the  maternal  
body,  is  it  not  after  a  fashion  penetrated  by  the  youth  who  thrusts  his  image  into  it?”  
(Kristeva,  113)  For  Freud,  “a  human  being  has  originally  two  sexual  objects:  himself  and  
the  woman  who  nurses  him…”  One  can  find  in  narcissism  the  simultaneous  merging  and  
displacement  of  these  objects.  The  wholeness  promised  by  the  maternal  figure  mediates  
the  original  autoeroticism  of  the  infant  such  that  she  becomes  the  surface  onto  which  and  
against  which  the  narcissistic  image  is  cast.  If  one  cannot  achieve  self-­‐‑satisfaction,  it  is  the  
fault  of  the  woman  who  has  denied  it  to  him,  or  who  at  least  has  failed  to  ready  him  to  take  
it  for  himself.  When  Narcissus  cries,  he  curses  the  watery  reflection  for  leaving  him,  even  
though  it  is  his  own  tears  that  break  it.    
 
One  might  say  that  the  spring  is  the  sexual  object  proper  to  Narcissus.  The  spring  is  
commanded  to  hold  herself  still,  keep  her  waters  clear  and  virginal,  so  that  man  might  see  
himself  reflected  therein.  It  cannot  be  overcome  by  flows  of  its  own  hysterical  emotion,  else  
it’s  reflective  capacity  be  ruined.  The  pool  is  the  other  whom  we  demand  give  us  back  a  
reflection  of  our  self  as  we  see  it;  that  is,  an  ego.  Thus,  as  Kristeva  remarks,  this  possession  
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of  the  image  “holds  only  nothingness  for  store  for  the  other,  particularly  the  other  sex  
(Kristeva,  113).”  The  maternal  spring—woman—is  “simply  a  medium”  for  the  projections  
of  Narcissus.  Yet,  because  the  beloved  other  that  Narcissus  seeks  is  not  simply  his  own  
image,  but  himself  as  the  other,  the  spring  can  provide  him  only  a  phantasm  of  this  object  of  
desire.  
The  tragic  aspect  of  the  myth  is  not  that  his  beloved  escaped  him,  but  that  his  
beloved  was  fated  to  escape  him.  Thus,  “if  the  Narcissus  adventure  is  perceived  as  insane  
by  Ovid  […]  insanity  comes  from  the  absence  of  an  object,  which  is,  in  the  final  analysis,  the  
sexual  object”  (Kristeva,  116).  This  lacking  object  “gives  sexual  existence  to  anguish”  and  
thus  Narcissus  becomes  the  subject  of  reflection  and  death,  capable  of  reflecting  on  himself  
and  on  death.  Thus  reflecting,  Narcissus  finds  himself  as  desiring  both  himself  and  his  
death  in  the  same  movement  of  longing.  In  the  end,  the  autoeroticism  of  Narcissus  finds  its  
only  joy  in  the  clarity  with  which  he  perceives  his  own  ruination.    Narcissus:  the  avowed  
atheist,  Sisyphean  man:  pushing  boulders  up  a  hill  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  his  own  
destitution.      
As  a  manner  of  conclusion,  permit  me  to  bring  back  into  this  tale  an  aspect  we  have  
forgotten.  One  that,  for  all  the  treatment  given  to  this  myth  by  philosophers  and  
psychoanalysts,  has  been  relegated  to  a  place  of  silence  even  as  she  appears  woven  most  
apparently  through  Ovid’s  tale.  Recall  that  Narcissus  had  many  nameless,  anonymous  
suitors.  But  of  these,  Ovid  singles  out  one  who  is  particularly  besotted  with  the  beautiful  
boy:  accursed  Echo.    Having  hidden  the  details  of  her  father’s  infidelities  from  Juno,  his  
wife,  by  the  cleverness  of  her  speech,  Echo  is  cursed  by  the  jealous  goddess  to  forevermore  
only  be  able  to  repeat  the  words  given  to  her  by  others.  Catching  a  glimpse  of  Narcissus,  
Echo  is  stricken  by  love  for  him  but,  owing  to  her  predicament,  is  unable  to  call  out  to  him.  
Instead,  Ovid  tells  us  that  Echo  follows  the  boy  at  a  distance,  waiting  for  an  opportunity  
where  she  might  speak  to  him.  Then  one  day,  Narcissus  is  separated  from  his  companions  
and  calls  out:  “Is  anyone  here?”  Echo  cries  back,  “Here!”    Narcissus  hearing  in  answer  “his  
own  words  again”  is  unsure  of  her  presence,  and  so  Echo  rushes  forth  from  her  hiding  place  
among  the  trees  seeking  to  embrace  him.  Yet  Narcissus  flees  from  her  as  he  has  from  so  
many  others,  saying  to  her:  “Embrace  me  not!  May  I  die  before  I  give  you  power  over  me!”  
Yet  Echo,  overcome  by  her  love  for  the  beautiful  youth  repeats  only  some  of  his  words:  “I  
give  you  power  over  me!”    
It  might  thus  be  said  that  in  the  tale  of  Narcissus  there  are  two  mirrors:  the  maternal  
spring,  bearing  one’s  image  in  her  waters;  and,  the  more  profound,  creative  mirror  of  Echo.  
Echo  doesn’t  give  back  the  ego,  but  gives  herself  to  him  in  response.  In  this  mirror  is  not  the  
still  emptiness  of  the  Narcissus’  image,  but  borrowed  words  weaving  subjectivity.  
Narcissus  ignores  Echo,  hearing  only  a  stilted  reflection  of  himself;  a  lesser,  unstable,  more  
hysterical  copy.  He  does  not  see  the  creativity  of  the  nymph  who  gives  him  back  to  himself  
in  love,  who  gives  herself  to  him  as  an  inspired  reflection.  Even  forced  into  this  role  by  the  
unabashed  lechery  of  her  father,  Echo  manages  to  speak  herself:  she  reaches  out  to  
Narcissus  but  her  mirror  is  not  clear  enough  for  him.  There  is  some  of  her  in  it.  Her  life,  her  
words,  and  her  love  obscure  his  own  reflection.  He  sees  that  it  would  be  contaminated  by  
this  entwining  of  her  into  him  and  he  is  afraid.  Still  greater  is  his  fear  that  this  entwining  
becomes  an  intertwining  so  that  his  own  reflection  would  contain  her  face:  her  eyes  gazing  
back  into  his  own.  This  quiet  pang  of  responsibility  disquiets  him—what  if  I  can  no  longer  
see  myself?  Not  because  I  have  vanished,  but  because  I  have  become  a  chimera,  capable  
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only  of  gazing  at  myself  with  your  eyes?  I  see  a  stranger  in  the  mirror  that  looks  like  you,  
and  I  only  have  recognized  myself.  I  might  like  what  I  see,  but  the  mirror  is  no  longer  clear.  
The  mirror  of  Echo  is  blasphemous.    
Perhaps  one  can  imagine  that  Narcissus  is  looking  for  the  very  love  that  Echo  and  so  
many  others  offer  to  him,  but  this  love  doesn’t  reflect  himself  and  so  he  rejects  her.  This  
situation  is  not  hard  to  imagine:  a  person  has  a  generally  misanthropic  attitude  and  scorns  
the  love  they  are  offered  by  others  because  they  are  certain  that  their  friends  will  all  turn  
out  to  be  false  friends,  or  otherwise  won’t  live  up  to  their  expectations.  The  apparent  
certainty  of  this  thought  then  prevents  them  from  forming  close  bonds  with  others,  thereby  
confirming  the  validity  of  the  same  misanthropic  outlook  that  instantiates  the  paranoia.  It  
is  unsurprising,  therefore,  that  Lacan  thus  attributes  to  Narcissus  a  kind  of  paranoiac  
thinking,  always  on  the  lookout  for  what  would  disturb  the  ideality  of  the  self  to  which  it  
clings.  It  is,  says  Lacan,  “the  very  delusion  of  the  misanthropic,  beautiful  soul,  casting  out  
onto  the  world  the  disorder  that  constitutes  his  being  (Lacan,  93).”  
 
References  
Kristeva,  Julia.  “Narcissus:  The  New  Insanity”  in  Tales  of  Love,  trans.  Leon  Roudiez.  
Columbia  University  Press;  April  15,  1987  
 
Lacan,  Jacques.  “Aggressiveness  in  Psychoanalysis”  and  “The  Mirror  Stage”  in  Ecrits,  trans.  
Bruce  Fink.  W.  W.  Norton  &  Company;  January  17,  2007  
 
Ovid  Metamorphoses,  trans.  Frank  Justus  Miller.  Barnes  and  Noble  Classics,  2005.  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Us  Mechanic  Ghosts:  
objectsubject  and  spacetime,  multidimensional  lack  
by  Eliot  Rosenstock  

 
(Edited image from “Bladerunner 2049,” the replicants existing simultaneously in their
individual objectsubject planes as well as spacetime.)
 
Without  the  proper  framework  for  existence,  our  ignorance  trips  us  up,  ignorance  
creating  a  positive  feedback  loop  unto  itself,  expanding  itself,  overshadowing  everything.  
This  is  the  nature  of  all  frameworks,  but  a  more  accurate  framework  looping  upon  itself  has  
a  different  nature  than  one  based  off  of  an  inaccurate  understanding  of  the  nature  of  being.  
The  accurate  framework  seems  to  allow  the  subject  to  move  fluidly  through  existence.  Why  
bother  with  more  metaphysical  frameworks  when  Kant  has  long  been  buried  in  the  
ground?    A  being-­‐‑savoir  (an  expertise  of  being)  can  only  be  built  through  an  accurate  
framework  of  reality  and  the  nature  of  inhabiting  reality,  and  the  being-­‐‑savoir  is  highly  
recommended  by  this  author  for  all  those  who  have  the  pleasure  of  existing.    
 The  objectsubject  field  is  a  metaphysical  framework  for  organizing  the  existence  of  
an  organic  being  simultaneously  as  the  center  of  one  metaphysical  universe  (the  
objectsubject  field  of  a  particular  subject)  along  side  the  organic  being’s  inhabitance  in  
spacetime,  which  is  the  shared  space  of  existence,  i.e.,  the  physical  realm.    
“What  do  you  think  you  are,  the  center  of  the  universe?”  the  Big  Other  cries  to  us.    
Within  our  phenomenological  investigations  we  are  in  fact,  the  immovable  center  of  
the  universe  from  which  all  context  drives.  We  have  a  left  and  right,  a  front  and  back,  which  
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