But now, during the first decades of the twentieth century, physicists (S2 in the upper left position, as agents) are confronted with enigmatic entities (elementary particles: a in the upper right position), which not only open previously unknown dimensions of reality (the subatomic realm), but also unleashing unprecedented forms of power, resulting in an existential crisis, as a byproduct of university discourse ($ in the lower-right position). In other words, the ontological status of the gadget (dubious from the start) changes drastically. As Lacan predicted, the discourse of the hysterical emphatically addresses the Master (as recipient of the message, S1 in the upper right position), but inevitably strengthens the power of the technocrats (as a byproduct, S2 in the lower right position).
Oppenheimer in Fiction: The Man Who Would Be God
However, the main character of the novel is Mark Ampter, who is actually similar to Haakon Chevalier in several respects. Moreover, Mark Ampter and his wife Eve (Barbara Chevalier) become good friends of the Bloch couple. And finally, in Chevalier's novel there is a crucial scene of miscommunication: the garden scene, the turning point in the novel, which is eerily reminiscent of the Chevalier Incident.
In other words, Chevalier and Ampter represent opposite ends of the political spectrum: Chevalier as a member of the Communist Party (taking instructions from Moscow), Ampter as an employee of the (anti-communist) secret service (operating from Washington). Both the Secret Service and the Communist Party are Big Brother-type organizations: they take over people's lives while gathering potentially damaging information about individual members for potential. Bloch's appointment as director of research facilities at Los Alamos (called Valhalla in the novel) forces him to sever all ties to his left-wing past.
4 "It wouldn't just disappear as a result of him resigning from the security service. 5 "The embryo of the thing, as many referred to it, was now in full growth.
University Discourse: Vicissitudes and Discontents
During the Bolt years, Sebastian had to "eliminate everything that was tangential to his main task" (p. 332). 6 Although Bloch is generally regarded as a genius, the novel mentions "the relative lightness of his original work, the complete absence of new fundamental discoveries or concepts comparable to those made or introduced by many of his immediate contemporaries, such as Dirac, Heisenberg, Fermi, Oppenheimer, Schrödinger, Joliot-Curies (pp. 158/159). Scientists see the “crisis of science” as “a reflection of the crisis that plagues our entire society.
Indeed, quantum physics illustrates "the vacillation of our metaphysics" (p. 151), but also "awareness of the need for synthesis." But this, according to Bloch and his followers, would require a shift, at the level of philosophies (under the bar: S1), to dialectical materialism as the new foundation, turning society as such into a kind of university. world, with physicists as guardians of the atomic age. In confronting the Thing, the position of the scientific expert (S2) is destabilized and the site of research becomes an ethical and epistemological clinic ($), sometimes literally, when Sebastian is forced to take his bed due to exhaustion (clinic is derived from κλίνη , = bed).
For this is the moral of the story: Oppenheimer becomes what Lacan (1966, p. 870) calls a “victim of science” ($ in the lower right position). The crisis of the subject entails a knowledge drama that does not correspond to the typical Oedipal crisis in the classical Freudian sense.
The Case of Communism
Bourgeois philosophy (articulated by Ernst Mach and others) is based on a misinterpretation of the new physics, to be rebuked by dialectical materialism. As Žižek says, based on Lacan: "The Soviet Union was the pure reign of university discourse".8 Marxism (dialectical materialism) appeals to scientists in the novel precisely because it is structured like university discourse. Thus, as they join the army of scientists to make their infinitesimal and anonymous contribution (S2 in the upper left .. 8http://www.lacan.com/zizfour.htm 4.5 The Case of Communism . position) they are, however, driven by a demanding worldview whose conflict with the political status quo is temporarily suspended (S1 in lower left position).
This gives rise to hesitation and doubt, resulting in discussions about the social implications of the gadget ($in the lower right position). The bomb will redefine world politics in the post-war era: it will play a decisive role in a developing anti-communist conflict with the Soviet Union. Oppenheimer frantically tries to secure his control over the bomb's future, even if it means reporting the names of former communist friends and denouncing colleagues to security agents, who constantly harass him to do so.
While normal science is being reinstalled (S2 in top left position), many scientists are expelled from academia, forced to leave the field, meanwhile plagued by moral qualms due to the nuclear disaster they contributed to, the "horror holocaust" ", it. They have "armed the army with the ultimate weapon, an entirely new factor in the world situation, a force unparalleled in history," serving "mankind's mania for self-destruction" (p. 338), but now they are dispatched .(as human resources) while the state seizes the valuable product of their labor.
S 2 as Secret Agent
As soon as it becomes clear that atomic knowledge can lead to the creation of an atomic bomb, the biographies of the scientists involved (previously more or less uninteresting) become "records" or When Sebastian is about to be appointed scientific director of the Valhalla project, it is clear to him that “from here on. From now on, the chief perceives everything Ampter says as a possible access to "Sebastian Bloch's mind" (p. 73).
During the first five years of the investigation, Gregg never sees or meets Bloch himself. On the one hand, Bloch is one of the chosen ones, but at the same time he is a dangerous apostate. He reminds him of “a sculpture unearthed after many centuries and showing the signs of time” (p. 310), “the reincarnation of a holy man from a distant age” (p. 315); the Ötzi of the intelligence service.
In the course of the twentieth century, Lacan (2004; cf. Zwart 2017a) believes, the human gaze and voice, as objects a, as objects of desire, became externalizable and transferable with the help of cameras, voice recorders and the like. devices. The recording of the recognizable yet disembodied voice is the object a of the Bloch file, the missing link that is now there, so that the file is now "quite complete".
The Discourse of the Hysteric
But before delving further into the analyst's discourse (with the university discourse inevitably slipping in at this point and taking a quarter turn to the left), I will first examine the role of the hysteric's discourse in Chevalier's novel. From a Marxist perspective, the intended Sovietization of the United States is conceived as a thoroughly scientific endeavour. Nevertheless, as we have seen, university discourse produces instances of discontent and deception ($), for example when the bomb was not used as a weapon against Nazi Germany (as many scientists, especially refugees from Central Europe, had hoped). but rather as an instrument of power to secure America's global monopoly position.
To avoid the discourse of the hysterical ($ → S2), he becomes hyperactive, traveling to Washington as the executive secretary of an association of left-wing scientists concerned about Bolt's future. To get out of this impasse, he decides on a different strategy: the discourse analyst. Instead of criticizing those in power, he sets out in search of truth, relegating object a to the position of agent (top left).
The source of the damaging information, which ruined his career, but also the cause of his physical disability as a soldier (the loss of a significant part of his intestines, the loss of his masculinity and strength: -φ), was Sebastian himself . : the very person about whom Mark himself has produced a great deal of disparaging information. In this scene we enter another type of discourse, another kind of interaction: the discourse of the analyst.
The Discourse of the Analyst
He becomes increasingly aware of the "fragility" of "this flimsy, flawed organism which he carried with him" (p. 377), of his "precarity" (p. 377). She pressed against him, enveloping him with her flesh, the fullness and firmness of the fabric that made up her body, the mantle of muscle and tissue that clothed her bones. Chevalier's description of Sebastian's face, marked by his encounter with the Bolt, is remarkably reminiscent of Jung's description of the impact of the trinity vision on the body, personality and face of Brother Nicolas of Flüe after being confronted with a revelatory vision that dramatically changed his life but destroyed his health (Jung 1953, p. 78).
Towards the end of the novel, Sebastian's state of chronic "exhaustion" (p. 346), as a result of his interactions with the Thing, results in a physical and mental breakdown, a kind of "numbness." This corresponds to the basic message of the extensive mural (on wooden panels, almost a hundred square meters in size) that Pablo Picasso painted in 1957. Towards the end of the novel, during the catharsis or denouement phase, Gregg points out that Sebastian Bloch's case reminds him of Greek tragedies.
To realize his goal, Sebastian stops being a scientist and becomes a manager, a politician, and finally he becomes a visionary, a sage (S2 → S1) who sees the pattern, the whole, in sets the prospect, as in the Lacanian quadrupedal reflection. the discourse of the analyst. But ultimately he identifies with the position of the sage who sees the pattern, sees further and more clearly than others, a kind of invisible, intangible guiding Spirit (S1 in the lower-right position), one who eventually succeeds in becoming " completely detached".
Aftermath: Science and Art
There were two men in Sebastian Bloch', but only one of them was a scientist (p. 158). First, it results in various types of symptoms that turn Sebastian into a chain-smoking anorexic with a strange look ($ in the upper right position), someone who is willing to betray his past, to the point of creating harmful fabrications, just to ensure ( at least temporarily) of his subsequent interactions with Bolt.
