Concepts

The emotional totalitarianism (Slavoj Zizek) and the relational terrorism (Jacques Salomé)
Open letter to Frédéric Bonnaud (Charivari of 01 12 2005 program on France Inter)

I was in my car and I listened with great attention your program « Charivari » of Thursday December 1st , 2005. I was able to listen to it again on the France Inter site.
The passionate tone and the « very colourful French » of your guest, the Slovene Slavoj Zizek, has of course something to do with the interest that I found, but is not the unique reason.
« Slavoj Zizek is a man who knows as well Alfred Hitchcock’s movies than the writings of Jacques Lacan » did you say to start. Before adding in substance – I summarize: « He is a philosopher and however he mistrusts the « good thinking » like the plague. Star of American campus, it is in France that he maybe the least known. He worships paradox. His thinking is as annoying as stimulating. »
I would like to thank you for allowing me to know this author. Stimulated I was. In my reflection and in my audacity to write to you.
The object of my article relates to the comparison done by your guest between the traditional paternal authority and authority that he calls post-modern. The reading grid that I adopted is widely inspired by the psycho sociologist Jacques Salomé ‘s model of human relationships intelligibility.
I first retranscribe, in extenso, the extract of your program that interests me here.
About the traditional paternal authority and the post-modern authority, Slavoj Zizek starts by giving an example. « Let us say that it is Sunday afternoon and you are a small child, a girl, and your father wants to convince you to go visiting a grandmother or an old aunt. The traditional father would be like a partisan of Pascal or Althusser, meaning [that he would say]: « I don’t care about what you believe; you must obey to the ritual. » The message would be: « I don’t care about what you think; it is your duty to visit the grandmother and to be kind… twaddle… » It is an outer discipline … The traditional father… It is good because it leaves you the inner liberty to resist. »
What will do today’s father? He will tell you : « You know how much your grandmother loves you, you know how much hurt she will be if you do not visit her, but still I want that you visit her only if you want to do it. » So it appears to be a free choice but each child knows very well… »
You interrupted your guest by this remark: « So you are telling me that we went from the authoritarianism to emotional blackmail and that the emotional blackmail is worst… »
Slavoj Zizek confirmed: « Yes, the emotional blackmail is worst. Why? Because each child knows it, that this appearance of choice is supported by a much stronger order: the real message of the father is not only « you must visit », but it is: « we tell you how to define what you really want ». This is maybe a definition of emotional totalitarianism l. »
You reformulated: « emotional totalitarianism! »
To which your guest answered: « Because the traditional master tells you: « You must obey, I do not care about what you think. » The modern master says: « I will even tell you your will… » You pursued: « Not only your duty but your will, your will to want… » Finally your interlocutor ends by this question: « And this is much more oppressing, is it? »
If I stick to this example, I hear that you use the word « emotional blackmail » in a general sense. It is possible to go further in the identification of the used process. It is furthermore easier said than done, to speak of « the appearance of free will ». The message of the post-modern father is a dead end message.

It involves many levels of constraints confusing for the mind and heavy for the moral consciousness:

• mixing of types between the register of feelings (Your grandmother loves you) and of the relationship, which is in reality, the main medium of the exchange here (the father is in situation of having to make a request to his daughter and the mention of the emotional register does not fix nothing ),

• introduction of guilt brought on a paradoxical mode.
  With this, come on choose! Especially if you are a child in relationship of emotional dependency.

I split hairs with vocabulary quibbling? Maybe but not only! I acquired guidelines. They are transmissible. I explain. Let us distinguish the terms « blackmail » « guilt » and « paradoxical injunction ».

The word blackmail comes from « to sing». This verb had expansions towards figurative senses, among others, to obtain a confession ». The locution « to blackmail somebody » was formed in the sense of «to extort money by guile, or force, maybe by ironic allusion to the questioned one who will make sing and admits» (French language Etymological Dictionary).Hence the name «blackmail» which indicates by extension, « the action of trying to obtain something from someone, by threatening of doing what you be unpleasant for him » (Le Petit Robert) « You will see if you continue! » « If you have a good mark, I will buy you a video game. » «If you do not have a good mark, forget about your pocket money this week! » « If you do not recite your prayers, you will go to hell. »
In Slavoj Zizek’s example, it is less about blackmail than guilt.

Guilt consists on a moral pressure exercised on someone to bring him to do or not to do what we want him to do or not. It is a disguised way to dictate to him his behaviour without clearly requesting it, while appealing to his good consciousness. Often (too often), we invoke feelings (blame the feelings), to impose to somebody our way to see or to demand from him the ad hoc behaviour (even, and it is worst, sensations) that we expect. In our example, the sentence of the post-modern father starts by a call to the sensible emotional cord (You know how much your grandmother loves you). This statement involves a hidden meaning which initiates the guilt pump: « feelings that your grandmother has for you, make it that you must show her how grateful you are by visiting her. If you do not do it, she will be unhappy and it will be your fault».
But this sentence has a double meaning, it contains another message: the statement of a paradoxical choice.

The paradoxical choice is here a choice based on an injunction which involves an interlocking of two messages, one of which rests on a logical contradiction, and the other on a paradox (« the order much stronger » of which Slavoj Zizek speak about).

1. « Basically you do not really have the choice not to visit your grandmother, but at the same time, I want that you visit her only if you want to go » In other words: « I present the situation as if it was a choice, but basically you do not really have the choice ».

2. « I want that you to feel that you want by yourself without having to impose anything. » This is what we call a double constraint, a will « on » the other or a will that pushes down with all its weight « on » the other’s will. Although in reality, we have no power in this matter: the will the same as the desire of someone has its own laws, it comes from it and only from it, from it’s only « real Self ». We cannot dictate to someone what he feels or does not… Not even to ourselves! Let‘s say it!

All in all, the traditional father has at least the merit of being clear. He imposes only what he can impose: an action (that the child goes with him to the grand-mother, whether he agrees or not). When Slavoj Zizek says that he « does not care » about what the child believes or thinks, it is about understanding that he is not preoccupied by knowing if the child wants or does not, since anyway, he does not have any influence, as a father, on the will of the other one.
In the example of the post-modern father, it is an injunction of paradoxical conformity in due form, as it is well know by specialists. It is a very disquieting, disturbing and oppressive message indeed. It is like a banana skin that floats on the surface of the exchange: insidious and pernicious, it produces pathogens effects which end up by driving literally crazy (« The effort to make the other crazy » Harold Searles). The paradigmatic form of this type of message is the famous « Be spontaneous! » to which it is not possible to answer. Because, There are two possibilities: either I am spontaneous (and I am not because I answer to a solicitation but because I am) or I answer to an injunction and I loose contact with my own source of spontaneity (split process very impoverishing for the inner life and creativity).
When we take a closer look, the expression « emotional totalitarianism » has nothing to do with a euphemism. We are not very far from an evocative formulation dear to Jacques Salomé (« Pour ne plus vivre sur la planète TAIRE ») who speak about « relational terrorism ». Let us just change the scene and let go to the next room: the father-daughter’s relationship from our example, to the couple relationship.
Her: « If you love me, you must not only think about buying me flowers for my birthday, but you must above all feel that you want to buy me flowers. »
Him: « You must feel that you want to make love. »
Of course, neither her nor him formulates his expectation that lucidly but her sulkiness and his reproaches, nevertheless cast out the nines, of the demands that they mutually address to one another (that besides they consider by as totally legitimate, under the name of what they call « their love » with or without a big A, your choice). Frustrations are piling up on top of one another in each one of them, resentment grows as a poisonous mushroom after the rain, the dirty game of retaliation engages, at the risk of degenerating one day or another, in one of these dishes’ splinters and violence, called more commonly a domestic fight.
The «relational terrorism » rages in our daily lives and produces its low noise devastation, in the strictest intimacy. It is not spoken of a lot in the media community. We must say that it is not much fun to go to – it assumes that we become aware that the worm is in the fruit of our own way to see and to communicate –. But it deserves nevertheless to be better known, if we want to be more respectful towards one another and to be able, as adults or parents, to exercise an honest authority (André Carel psychoanalyst) by allowing our children to become « authors of their decisions » while being confronted to limits (authority comes from the Latin “auctor” as Jacques Salomé likes to remind us).