ABSTRACT
If Lacan did not actually use the term the “ social imaginary,” this is implied by his general discussion of the imaginary/symbolic polar ity in the sense that every child apparently moves through the same imaginary and enters the same symbolic (i.e. the langauge and other representational orders). But both the imaginary and the symbolic are social in a more specific sense - a sense that involves particular historical and cultural context. The cultural/historical embedded ness of the symbolic is obvious in the post-structuralist era, but less obvious may be the social nature of that imaginary that continues alongside the symbolic, enmeshed with it in the manner of second ary with primary processes, and which harnesses the insatiable desire instituted at the moment of individuation. While the infan t’s early, pre-symbolic psychic experience (the mother-child dyad) may vary rather little from one culture or historical period to another, the post-symbolic imaginary is surely inflected by cultural and historical specificities.
