ABSTRACT
The commonsensical understanding of the superego views it as an internalization of the external law. The law prohibits smoking in an office building, and the subject who wants to smoke experiences superegoic pressure not to do so. This pressure appears to follow directly from the external law and even to take the same form. But this masks the profound dissimilarity between the law from the superego, a dissimilarity that extends to their political effect. Whereas the fundamental effect of the law is to free the subject, the superego introduces a profound restriction on that freedom. Of course, it is impossible to eliminate the superego altogether—just as it is impossible to eliminate the law—but we can stop nourishing the superego. The identification of the superego in social relations and the struggle against its ideological effects are two of the central terrains for psychoanalytic politics.
