정치 윤리학으로서의 민족주의: 민족과 개인의 욕망

Abstract

Nationalism endorses a collective movement to establish an authentic position in the international cultural and political arena. Arguably the dialectic of nationalism and geopolitics bears a reassuring similarity to the philosophical lineage going back, at least, to Hegelian dialectic of universality and particularity. This dialectic platform has been concerned with sustaining, among other things, the dynamics between the universal and the particular. In practical terms, nationalism prompts increased sensitivity to socio-political pressures coming from abroad to cancel the national particularity into geopolitical, so-called universal, anonymity. Drawing suggestively from psychoanalysis, Lacanian ethics in particular, this discussion articulates the ethics of nationalism. Recounting Kantian self-determination as a reference point for responsible morality, Lacan suggests the problematics of desire as an alternative index for ethics. As individual desire flows from the unfathomable abyss of misrecognition, Lacanian ethics dissuade individuals to unlearn the fantasy that their own real desire, a residue produced by the Symbolic process, can be satisfied with that very socio-cultural Symbolic. Subjecting nationalism to Lacanian implications, Zizek illuminates nationalism as a small screening object which obscures as much as displays the circuits to the individual desire. Psychoanalytic ethics addresses that the ethical base should be found upon the particular, individual, real desire. As far as the nationalist cause also puts emphasis upon particularity rather than universality, nationalism is logically positioned to exert reflective efforts on empowering its constitutive individuals. Lacanian ethics persuades us to challenge the universal claim and to work through to regenerate nationalism in presenting its final contribution towards individual particularities.