Antigone and Ismene, Models for Post-Oedipal Post-Modern Development?

One of the lessons which Hitler has taught us is that it is better not to be too clever. The Jews put forward all kinds of well-founded arguments to show that he could not come to power when his rise was clear for all to see. I remember a conversation during which a political economist demonstrated- on the basis of the interests of the Bavarian brewers- that the Germans could not be brought into line. Other experts proved that Fascism was impossible in the West. The educated made it easy for the barbarians everywhere by being so stupid. The farsighted judgments, the forecasts based on statistics and experience, the comments beginning "this is a subject I know very well," and the well-rounded, solid statements, are all untrue

-Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno

At all events, it is better to be controlled by someone else than by oneself. Better to be oppressed, exploited, persecuted and manipulated by someone other than by oneself. In this sense the entire movement for liberation and emancipation, inasmuch as it is predicated on a demand for greater autonomy- or, in other words, on a more complete introjection of all forms of control and constraint under the banner of freedom- is a regression.

-Jean Baudrillard

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The problems of cynicism and violence, while certainly not new and arguably not as severe as the media coverage might suggest, are nevertheless noteworthy for being symptomatic of larger cultural shifts.' These shifts, often given the general descriptive term "postmodem," can also be described in terms of what Gilles Deleuze calls the "society of control" and what Slavoj Zizek calls "de-oedipalization." These two otherwise disparate theories of the social resonate with one another since they both argue that Michel Foucault's concept of the disciplinary society no longer carries sufficient descriptive force. Deleuze and Zizek suggest that power is no longer organized primarily through institutions to produce compliant, useful, and productive bodies; instead, institutions are breaking down and forms of external regulation are withdrawing. However, as has been noted by several cultural theorists, there has not been a concomitant resurgence of liberatory practices. The usefulness of Deleuze and Zizek is that they provide two ways to model how the flow of power has found new modalities through which to exercise control. Zizek further suggests that the withdrawal of the body of external social regulations and constraints- what is referred to as "the big Other" in Lacanian theory- has initiated post-oedipalized forms of subjectivity no longer keyed to the oedipal scene. Lacking the libidinal, internalized attachment to authority (typically in patriarchal forms of the Father and its substitutes), these subjects are prone to disaffected attitudes and behavior, including cynicism, apathy, disregard, and violence.

- Thomas Rickert, "Hands Up, You're Free: Composition in a Post-Oedipal World"Pablo Picasso, "Garçon à la Pipe (English: Boy with a Pipe)" (1905)