Toying with the law: Deleuze, Lacan and the promise of perversion
| Author | Kai Heron |
| Published date | 01 October 2022 |
| Date | 01 October 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1474885120906935 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article EJPT
Toying with the
law: Deleuze, Lacan
and the promise of
perversion
Kai Heron
The University of Manchester, UK
Abstract
This article proposes that Deleuze’s psychoanalytically inspired theory of humour and
irony provides an underappreciated way to theorize acts of resistance that adopt a
structurally perverse position towards a law or authority. In his books Coldness and
Cruelty and Difference and Repetition, Deleuze explains that the law is susceptible to two
kinds of subversive procedure. The first, which he calls irony and which he aligns with
sadism, reveals a gap between the law and its principles. The second, which he calls
humour and which he aligns with masochism, exposes a gap between the law’s inter-
dictions and their consequences. For Deleuze, humour and irony harbour the potential
to overturn or overthrow the law. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalytic theory and
contemporary examples – alt-right ‘free speech’ demonstrations in the United States
and protests surrounding Russia’s 2012 parliamentary elections – the article argues that
Deleuze overstates the transformative potential of perversion. Nevertheless, his
account remains useful for showing the circuitous routes that some subjects take to
enjoy their position within the law. Given the global rise in right-wing authoritarianism
in recent years, this may prove to be an important insight.
Keywords
Deleuze, Lacan, law, protest, psychoanalysis, resistance
Corresponding author:
Kai Heron, Politics and International Relations, Arthur Lewis Building, The University of Manchester, Oxford
Road, M13 9PL, Manchester, UK.
Email: kai.heron@manchester.ac.uk
European Journal of Political Theory
!The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1474885120906935
journals.sagepub.com/home/ept
2022, Vol. 21(4) 738–758
Barnaul, Russia. 11 February 2012. Disney Pixar’s Wall-E braves the cold and
snow to express his dissatisfaction with Russia’s disputed parliamentary elections.
By his side a Lego man holds firmly to a placard reading: ‘A thief should sit in jail,
not in the Kremlin’. Nearby, a despondent Shrek holds a sign that reads: ‘We’ve
got elections but nothing to choose from’. As passers-by chuckle to themselves,
the plastic ne’er-do-wells have their photos taken by police for the purposes of
evidence. A police officer with a notepad records the sentiments expressed on the
banners of the 200-odd toys present: ‘I’m doing my job. I’m writing what I see’, the
officer explains to the gathering crowd (Moscow Times, 2012).
The motley crew of dolls, figurines and teddy bears, dubbed a ‘nanoprotest’ by
its human organizers, the Barnaul Decemberists, was the latest in a series of pro-
tests against Russia’s recent parliamentary elections and subsequent suppression of
civil disobedience in anticipation of Putin’s re-election campaign the following
month (White, 2013). The toys were intended to accentuate and hyperbolize the
near impossibility for Barnaul’s human citizens to exercise their right to hold
demonstrations. As one organizer put it: ‘whilst the authorities restrict our con-
stitutional rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, the rights of toys have so far
been untouched’ (Sputnik, 2012).
Boston, USA. 19 August 2017. A week after right-wing demonstrations in
Charlottesville, Virginia, led to the murder of an anti-fascist counter-demonstra-
tor, the right-wing group ‘Boston Free Speech Coalition’ hold a ‘free speech’ rally.
The most recent in a succession of far-right appeals to free speech against what
they consider the encroachment of political correctness and ‘cultural Marxism’, the
rally invites ‘libertarians, conservatives, traditionalists, classical liberals, Trump
supporters or anyone else who enjoys their right to free speech’ to assemble and
exercise their right to speak out against the supposed disintegration of American
values (Kew, 2017). Despite the organizers’ claims that the rally is unrelated to the
events in Charlottesville, the short notice cancellation of speakers with white-
nationalist associations and the presence of far-right iconography give credence
to concerns that the event is commandeering the language of free speech to push a
white-nationalist agenda. Indeed, several months later, Richard Spencer, a leading
voice of America’s ‘alt-right’, explained on his podcast that the alt-right does not
believe that free speech is absolute. Rather, the language of free speech must be
adopted for ‘radically pragmatic’ reasons if the alt-right is to advance its agenda in
the United States (Holt, 2018).
Though these actions are clearly more dissimilar than they are similar, this
article argues that both occupy a stance towards the law that with Deleuze we
could call perversely comical. Barnaul’s nanoprotests are an exercise in obeying
the law – in this case the Russian government’s ban on protests – to bring about its
absurd and unintended consequences. Deleuze calls this ‘masochistic humour’.
Far-right free speech defenders, meanwhile, are an exercise in exploiting the
empty form of the law – in this case the formal right to free speech – to reverse
its underlying principles. Deleuze calls this ‘sadistic irony’. Both, he argues,
739Heron
To continue reading
Request your trial