I am Holy, I am Disaster

At an event I curated recently the musician Duke Special performed a magical gig that moved us all deeply. One of the songs that particularly struck a cord with me was called, “Condition” (which I would recommend listening to while reading the rest of this post)

The song itself captures something profoundly insightful about the human experience, an insight that I would like to reflect upon briefly in this post.

In approaching this subject I am reminded of an experience I often feel when being introduced to an audience before I speak. In these situations it is common for the one making the introduction to draw out some elements of my work and life that portray me in a positive light.

While one might think that listening to such an introduction would be a gratifying experience I often find it deeply disturbing. For in listening to what the person is saying I am momentarily confronted with the obvious difference between this portrayal of me and the lived reality of my mundane existence.

So what is going on here? In order to understand it better let us use two terms created by the theorist Lacan,

Ideal-Ego

Ego-Ideal

These can initially be confusing so it might be easier to imagine them like this,

Ideal > Ego

Ego > Ideal

The Ideal-Ego is a term that represents a constructed image of ourselves. This is not just any image, it is an ideal image. One in which we imagine that we are powerful, whole and right (something that likely begins to form in us between 6-18 months at the Mirror Phase). Here the ideal image informs and bolsters our fragile ego (the way we understand ourselves to be).

In contrast, the Ego-Ideal is where our fragile ego is confronted with the ideal we have embraced (I am powerful, whole and right). An ideal that we previously took for granted as being true.

As individuals we use our ideal image like a pair of glasses. That is, we do not seen them but rather they influence how we see everything. There is however a point when we momentarily glimpse the glasses themselves (rather than simply seeing through them).

This moment of seeing what we usually “see through” is the “Ego-Ideal”, and signals a rather traumatic experience. For what happens when we actually look at the ideal image we have of ourselves is that we are confronted by our profound sense of inadequacy.

In short, I come face to face with my weakness, conflicts and doubt. An experience that flies in the face of the image I have embraced about myself.

In theological language we can see this in the following way,

Created in the image of God (Ideal-Ego)

Made from the dust of the earth (Ego-Ideal)

In both theological and psychoanalytic terms the Ideal-Ego comes first and the Ego-Ideal comes second. In short, the experience of being dirt is tied to the experience of being a mirror of God.

The problem is that we often want to flee a confrontation with our ideal. Instead we desire to ignore, repress or disavow it. However, this rejection is more damaging to us than accepting it and embracing it. Not just on a personal level, but on a political level. For the embrace of an Ideal-Ego without a experiencing the Ego-Ideal means that we experience ourselves as profoundly right (just as the embrace of being made in the image of God without the sense of being dust means we experience a deep sense of divine right).

One of the aims of pyrotheology is to help people embrace the traumatic experience signalled by the term “Ego-Ideal.” Not so that we despair of ourselves  but so that we might discover the liberative and humanizing possibilities it opens up.

For more information on Pyrotheology check out the website and/or join an online Q&A that I will be running via Google + on June 9th at 4pm EST. To join in this discussion you need to sign up to the Pyrotheology page as that is how we will be be sending people information on how to join the conversation.

Photo courtesy of Sean Tucker