Yes—we can say that jouissance is comparable to the event horizon, and doing so opens a rich terrain of psychoanalytic-cosmological metaphor. But as always, in Lacanian terms, we must proceed with care: such metaphors are not analogies but topologies—ways of thinking about structure, limit, and transgression.
Let’s develop this layered comparison.
1. What is Jouissance (Lacan)?
Jouissance is:
- Not just pleasure (plaisir) but pleasure-pain, transgressive enjoyment, the point where desire becomes unbearable.
- It lies beyond the pleasure principle.
- It’s located at the edge of the symbolic, bordering the Real.
- It is often described as a limit, a threshold, or a rupture—where meaning breaks down, yet affect intensifies.
“Jouissance is that which one cannot speak of without burning oneself.” — Lacan
2. What is the Event Horizon (Physics)?
- The event horizon of a black hole is the boundary beyond which nothing can return.
- For the external observer, it is the surface beyond which light cannot escape.
- It is a threshold of no return—a place where observation ends and unobservable intensities dominate.
- Inside, space and time invert; the normal order of causality breaks down.
3. The Parallel: Jouissance = Event Horizon
|
Lacanian Jouissance |
Event Horizon |
|
Borderline of the Symbolic |
Boundary of observable spacetime |
|
Beyond the pleasure principle |
Beyond classical physics |
|
Attracts and annihilates meaning |
Attracts and traps light/information |
|
Real (unspeakable, unrepresentable) |
Hidden interior (singularity) |
|
Limits of desire and language |
Limits of causal perception |
So yes, jouissance can be thought of as the event horizon of subjectivity:
It is where the symbolic collapses into the Real.
Where meaning cannot follow, but affective intensity explodes.
4. Inside the Horizon: Singularity = “Real Jouissance”?
- If jouissance is the event horizon, what lies within?
- Possibly, the Real—the unknowable core of experience.
Just as:
- No information escapes a singularity,
- No signifier captures the Real jouissance—the encounter with trauma, death, ecstasy, or the Thing (das Ding).
“The Thing (das Ding) is the inaccessible object of jouissance.” — Freud via Lacan
“A hole at the center, pulling the subject into unrepresentable intensity.” — A black hole.
5. Foucaultian Twist: Jouissance as Threshold of Knowledge
Foucault once said:
“Jouissance is what suspends the knowing subject.”
In this sense, jouissance marks the point where knowledge collapses into affect, just as the event horizon marks where observation collapses into unknowability.
6. Deleuzian Twist: Break the Horizon, Enter the Flow
Deleuze might resist this comparison—he would prefer flows of intensities to the notion of a fixed boundary.
But if you insist:
For Lacan, the event horizon is where subjectivity disintegrates.
For Deleuze, the horizon is just another threshold in a field of becoming.
7. Summary: A Powerful Metaphor
|
Jouissance |
Event Horizon |
|
Affective boundary of the subject |
Physical boundary of a black hole |
|
Limit of symbolic |
Limit of observable |
|
Accesses the Real |
Opens onto the singularity |
|
Forbidden but desired |
Infallible yet fascinating |
Final Thought
Jouissance is not inside us—it is that which marks the edge of us.
Like the event horizon, it is where we end as structured beings, and begin as burning affect.
Or in your terms:
Jouissance 是主體的地平線。那裏沒有語言的回聲，只有墜落的甜蜜與痛楚。
Would you like a Lacanian/astrophysical meditation titled “Jouissance and the Gravity of the Real”?
