Absolutely—let’s go deeper into psychoanalytic terms, particularly using Lacanian and Freudian concepts, to analyze CCP ideology as a discursive complex, in the way Ian Parker would.
1. CCP Ideology as a Lacanian Discursive Complex
A discursive complex, for Parker, is not just discourse—it is discourse + unconscious investment + social power. In Lacanian terms, we can explore it through:
• Symbolic: the language and Law that structures meaning
• Imaginary: the misrecognized unity and identification
• Real: what resists symbolization but structures anxiety
• Fantasy: the screen through which subjects relate to the Other
• Jouissance: enjoyment, often in and through suffering
• The Big Other: the locus of authority and meaning
• Split subject ($): the subject divided by language and desire
• Master-signifier (S1): anchoring term that organizes meaning
2. The Symbolic Order: The CCP as the Big Other
The CCP positions itself as the Big Other—the source of truth, the arbiter of meaning, the guarantor of history.
• It speaks in the Name of the People, but also for History itself.
• Its language is ritualized, repetitive, empty-yet-full: slogans like “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” or “Common Prosperity” function as master-signifiers (S1)—floating signifiers that arrest meaning and gather chains of association.
• Party documents function like sacred texts—opaque, authoritative, demanding interpretation (like the unconscious).
3. The Imaginary: Identification and Misrecognition
CCP ideology demands imaginary identification:
• “I am one with the nation.”
• “The Party is the People; the People are the Party.”
This is méconnaissance—misrecognition. The subject sees itself in a mirror image of wholeness (the “harmonious society,” the “great rejuvenation”) that covers over the lack in both subject and system.
This is the mirror stage of national subjectivity: the subject identifies with the image of a unified, coherent China, even though what lies beneath is fragmented, traumatic, and unstable.
4. The Real: What is Repressed
Beneath this coherence lies the Real: the trauma that cannot be symbolized.
• The Cultural Revolution, Great Famine, Tiananmen Square, colonial past, existential threat of Taiwan—these are either repressed or sutured over.
• The Real erupts in moments of panic (e.g. censorship crackdowns, Hong Kong protests, COVID cover-ups), which are quickly recoded in symbolic terms (foreign threat, Western smear).
The Real also structures the system’s anxiety: the fear that the People may not actually believe, that the fantasy may not hold.
5. Fantasy: Screen of Coherence
The CCP discursive complex relies on fantasy, in Lacan’s sense: a structure that supports the subject’s desire in relation to the Other.
Fantasy formula (à la Lacan):
$ ◊ a → the split subject in relation to the object-cause of desire
• The subject ($) is the citizen—divided, anxious, censored.
• The object a is the fantasy of national greatness, recognition, rejuvenation—what will finally close the gap and make everything whole.
This fantasy supports the narrative: “If we continue to follow the Party, we will be saved.”
It’s not that the fantasy is ever realized—it’s that it organizes desire and structures obedience.
6. Jouissance: Painful Enjoyment
The CCP discursive complex is saturated with jouissance—the strange pleasure of submission, of sacrifice, of struggle.
• There is enjoyment in suffering for the nation (“enduring hardship,” “serving the people,” etc.)
• There is enjoyment in persecuting enemies (public shaming, crackdown campaigns, nationalist anger)
• There is even jouissance in censorship—the pleasure of being “clean,” of protecting the system from contamination.
This is not utility; it is libidinal. The subject enjoys their own repression, to the extent that it is framed as love for the Other (the Party/Nation).
7. The Split Subject ($): Ambivalence and Repression
Lacan’s split subject ($) is central here:
• The subject is not whole.
• The Party demands belief, but belief is performative, not necessarily internal.
• Subjects speak in Party language, but not all of them believe—thus producing disavowal: I know it’s not true, but I follow anyway.
This produces:
• Neurotic subjects: anxious, loyal, guilty
• Perverse subjects: enjoying the system, playing the game
• Psychotic foreclosure: in rare cases, subjects collapse when symbolic consistency breaks down (e.g. whistleblowers, defectors)
8. Summary: CCP Ideology as a Lacanian Discursive Complex
|
Lacanian Concept |
In CCP Ideology |
|
Big Other |
The Party as source of truth and history |
|
Master-Signifier |
“Socialism with Chinese characteristics,” “People” |
|
Imaginary |
National unity, identification with the Party |
|
Real |
Repressed trauma, systemic instability |
|
Fantasy ($ ◊ a) |
Redemption through Party leadership |
|
Jouissance |
Pleasure in obedience, sacrifice, national glory |
|
Split Subject ($) |
Performance of belief, inner doubt, repression |
Let me know if you want a companion analysis of resistance to this discursive complex—e.g. how satire, diaspora subjectivity, or trauma writing crack the coherence of this ideological structure.
