A Psychoanalytic Reading of Cyberspace: Problematizing the Digitalization of Oedipus Complex and the Dialectic of Subjectivity and Castration in the Cyberspace

Abstract

In the present paper, a translational model to psychoanalyze the cyberspace is presented with the argument that cyberspace is a translated version of human unconscious that projects both our unfulfilled desires and suppressed anxieties. This Freudian-based line of argument is followed by Lacanian (1950s) and Zizekian (2004) psychoanalysis to problematize the digitalization of Oedipus complex and the dialectic of castration and subjectivity within the cyberspace. By adopting a fuzzy logic-based approach, it is argued that cyberspace has both a panopticon-like and synopticon-like structure. The former is Oedipal in that it induces a sense of paranoia in the subjects and makes them symbolically castrated, but the latter is anti-Oedipal in that it promotes indeterminacy and pushes the subjects to the climax of self-subjectivity and subversion of the Oedipally determined identities. This is a counterargument to Zizek's (2004) strong view that cyberspace is essentially anti-Oedipal, a transition from the symbolic castration structure to post-Oedipal libidinal economy. The central argument of the paper is that cyberspace is the realm of both the Imaginary and Symbolic Orders where both the pleasure and morality principles are at work and access to the Real Order is maximized.