Loving Thy Neighbour

Abstract

When the other is reduced to an imaginary effect, the semblance of the subject’s own misrecognised ego, such a reduction necessarily entails a remainder, that of the other which refuses, which escapes, the reductive process. This ‘remainder’ would be the insistence of das Ding. This insistence of the lack, the lack of the answer, the impossibility of knowing and thus adequately responding to or accommodating the other’s desire, is evident in the story of Saint Martin and the beggar. Saint Martin, presumably with all the best of intentions, gives the beggar his cloak but, how, Lacan asks, does Saint Martin know that the cloak is what the beggar truly wants? He may want Saint Martin to ‘kill him or fuck him’ (Lacan, 1992: 186).