Psychopolitics of Speech ― Uncivil Discourse and the Excess of Desire

The human capacity for speech has long been celebrated as evidence of our innate civility. Why, then, is public discourse often – and today more than ever, it would seem – so uncivil, even delusional? The reason, argues James Martin in this timely book, lies in the way speech works to organize desire. More than knowledge or rational interests, public speech services an unconscious urge for a lost enjoyment, stimulating an excess in subjectivity that moves us in body and mind. Martin draws upon the work of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan as well as other continental thinkers to set out a new approach to the analysis of rhetoric and answer the troubling question of whether civil discourse can ever hope to escape its obscene underside.

James Martin is professor of political theory at Goldsmiths, University of London. His research includes studies on continental political theory, psychoanalysis, and rhetoric.