Trump Cards and Klein Bottles: On the Collective of the Individual

Abstract

This paper develops a neglected area in psychoanalytic theorizing: namely the collective aspects of individual subjectivity in the one-to-many object relationship. Using group theory allows us to describe this point of articulation between the individual and the group, allowing a more nuanced theoretical development of the social link in psychoanalysis. Subjectivity is inter-subjectivity in a radical way that extends beyond a singular one and singular other to pluralities of differences. We are both particles and waves; our subjectivity has a double provenance. This makes subjectivity inherently dynamic, inherently unstable, inherently dependent on groups of others, just as groups of others depend on the individuals that comprise them.