The Segregative Effects of Discourse

This paper will critically assess thesegregative practices that are ever moreprevalent in the contemporary world from theperspective of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Thesegregation which will be in question in thispaper concerns the current institutional modeof apprehending the subject by isolating andclassifying the subject on the basis of its`external characteristics'. However, thesegregative effects of discourse, it will beargued, are not simply the consequence of atransitory political or epistemologicalimbalance; for in fact, and as will be shownwith reference to Lacanian psychoanalysis, thelogic of segregation is inherent in the verystructure of language. Indeed, discourse isstructured by means of an exception to itselfwhich indexes the place of the subject assplit: this split in the subject, as an effectof language, situates segregation as the veryprinciple of language. In a second moment, thesegregative effects of discourse will be shownto be further amplified by the emptying out ofthe function of sovereignty. In the moderndemocracy, it is the void that now `occupies'the place of exception.