BEING PULLED HITHER AND THITHER

When it comes to the real, sublimation - a more sublime, more socially valued form of symptom – remains a symptom nonetheless. ‘If my devils are to leave me, I am afraid my angels will take flight as well’ was Rilke’s rebuttal of psychoanalysis. Equally fuelled by devils, sublimation and creativity have the same stem as any other symptom, which is that our desire is forbidden. Lacan names this stem a perfectly knotted pedicle of knowledge, a knowledge of the unconscious that we don’t want to know anything about.…