The superego is the imperative of jouissance—Enjoy!
--Jacques Lacan, Seminar XXi
If the primary function of the Superego is to impose limits and restrictions, why does Jacques Lacan, the controversial French analyst who proclaimed himself true heir to Freud’s legacy, posit that its injunction is “Enjoy”? Shouldn’t it rather be “No” or “Stop” or “Yield”?ii
Although Lacan has been accused of reworking Freud beyond recognition, I claim that when it comes to the Superego he remains thoroughly Freudian. Lacan lays bare the insidious strategy of the Superego: enjoyment loses its pleasurable dimension once it becomes an injunction. The subject is kept from “wrong” action not through demands for abstinence, but through forced enjoyment. This can be debilitating not only for the subject, but for its relation to the Other: enjoyment becomes a burden that has to be displaced to an Other who can accomplish the duty of jouissance for us.
We know that the Superego, following the conventional Freudian definition, is an internalized authority that bombards us with unreasonable ethical demands. It is the enemy of enjoyment; it is that which drains the pleasure out of indulgence. It is a cruel inner voice that reminds us that we are too fat, too wasteful, too lazy, too perverse.iii
Consistent with the metaphorics used in psychoanalysis, the Superego is represented in popular accounts as a whisper in our heads that brings to our attention moments of excess and failure. Despite its unimposing form, it can be psychologically crippling. Freud thought of the Superego as a sadistic judge with a single virtue, that of consistency: it never fails to issue a guilty verdict.
Part of the Superego’s function is to berate us for a failure that is inbuilt: It points to the gap that separates our pathetic reality from our perfect image of the self, the Ego-Ideal. Formed by early narcissistic love and untainted by flaws, the Ego-Ideal can only be perceived once the subject is made aware of its “lack,” which in turn can only be perceived once the subject recognizes the existence of an Other and the dependence on that Other. The Superego constantly ensures we are aware of the distance between what we are and what we would like to be and scolds us whenever we deviate from our Ideal in the pursuit of pleasure.
[...]