Passion and adolescence both call to mind the issue of excess, excess in the extreme, over-the-top. Here, love is insane and unbearable, more related to the need for the other than to the expression of desire. Also, in addition to the demand for control over the other who causes the need, we also find in the passionate subject an intra-subjective sadomasochism which is acted, as well as frequent self-destructive conduct (auto-sadism). Here, the victim and the tormenter are particularly dissolved and melded together.
Archives par mot-clé : Idolatry
Amos Squverer : idol : an adolescent passion’s religious moment
Adolescent exaltation before its idol will considered as a fundamentally religious moment. To grasp the psychical stakes of this social phenomenon, the author suggests that its metapsychological coordinates and function be considered in light of the scene of Hiflosigkeit – the matrix of religious representations. The idol will be understood as the perceptive image which saturates the gaze, thus annihilating the blind spot which establishes perception from the starting point of lack (la Chose). Paradoxically, this passion for the idol will be turn out to be a rampart against desire. This reading enables us to understand better the unusual strategy of the monotheistic Jewish religion against idolatry – which de-totalizes the figure that cannot withstand lack. Finally, to understand how the idol is a specifically adolescent phenomenon, the author offers a rereading of the idea of sexual trauma, as revealed by the moment of adolescence.
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°4, pp. 885-896.