Episode Overview

Title: The Last Resistance
Date: January 22, 2008
Host: LSE Film and Audio Team
Guests: Professor Jacqueline Rose (Queen Mary, University of London), Professor Stephen Frosh (Birkbeck, University of London), Henrietta Moore (LSE)

This episode centers around Jacqueline Rose's book "The Last Resistance," exploring its themes through the lenses of psychoanalysis, literature, politics, nationalism, and identity. The conversation delves into how fiction and psychoanalytic thinking help us understand the complexities of violence, resistance, and collective/national identities—especially in relation to Zionism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and broader issues of suffering and political ethics.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing "The Last Resistance"

[03:50] Stephen Frosh:

• Frosh opens by reading a letter to Jacqueline Rose describing the main themes of her book.
• Interval of Reflection: An ethical and psychological space between impulse and action, crucial for identification and empathy, especially with those we see as "other."
• The book bridges psychoanalysis, politics, and the personal, especially focusing on the suffering of others (notably Israelis and Palestinians) and the challenge of not passing on pain but entering into it.
• Fiction and psychoanalysis both serve as methods for "thinking-through" difficult, often painful, realities.

"There is suffering and injustice enough for everyone... The important thing is to enter into the pain of the other."
— Frosh quoting Edward Said and Rose [06:23]

2. Fiction as a Tool for Understanding Identity & Politics

[13:40] Jacqueline Rose:

• Fiction is vital in destabilizing rigid national and political identities by showing their precariousness, ambiguity, and multiplicity.
• Rose recounts Arnold Zweig’s novel about a political murder within Zionist history, highlighting how violence can exist within supposedly liberating movements.
• Literature allows us to question and shift our sense of self and collectivity in ways that other forms of representation (like film) often cannot, offering depth, ambiguity, and the possibility to "pause" and reflect.

"If I’m involved in identity politics at all, it’s one that knows that identity is precarious and endlessly modulated and not fixed..."
— Jacqueline Rose [14:55]

3. The Role and Limits of Psychoanalysis

[26:54] Jacqueline Rose:

• Psychoanalysis destabilizes identity by recognizing the unconscious as a powerful, unpredictable force: "Everybody knows whether they are a man or a woman, but the unconscious knows better...it’s a myth, a fantasy, a dream, and a lie."
• Rose favors a radical, non-normative reading of psychoanalysis (especially Freud and Lacan), contesting the view that psychoanalysis necessarily reinforces fixed or normative identities.
• Psychoanalysis, like literature, is not about self-knowledge but about imaginative openness to the unknown within us.

4. Nationalism, Violence, and Historical Specificity

[35:40] In Dialogue (Henrietta Moore & Jacqueline Rose):

• Discussion of how Freud’s psychoanalytic critique of identity grew against rising nationalism and anti-Semitism (late 19th/early 20th-century Vienna).
• The dangers of rigid national identity, both historically (Europe, Palestine) and in contemporary events (Abu Ghraib, Israel/Palestine).
• Social sciences and literature are likened in their capacity to reveal the multiple, context-dependent ways we experience national identity.
• Both positive (community, continuity, hope) and negative (exclusion, violence, humiliation) aspects of nationalism are examined.

"You have to look very specifically, for example, at the USSR and what has been done to religion in communist countries and so on. The problem of trying to wipe away religion, Freud was the worst..."
— Jacqueline Rose [60:24]

5. Understanding Violence and the Inexplicability of Extremes

[49:06, 76:01] Henrietta Moore & Audience Q&A:

• In discussing suicide bombers, Rose notes the inadequacy of either psychological or material explanations—something always escapes complete understanding, which is seen as important (and even comforting).
• The notion that there is troubling focus on explaining the "suicide bomber" rather than the less scrutinized acts of state-sponsored violence.

"Why is it seen as ethically superior to drop bombs on Dresden from a height than to commit an act of suicide? ...We have to ask why we're turning these people into case studies."
— Jacqueline Rose [77:05]

6. Resistance—Political and Psychoanalytic

[53:09] Stephen Frosh & Jacqueline Rose:

• Political resistance (as in anti-Nazi movements) is intertwined with psychoanalytic resistance (the mind’s avoidance of painful truths).
• When personal or collective suffering becomes fossilized into a rigid identity, it can justify political violence while suppressing the original pain—psychoanalytic resistance morphs into political resistance and vice versa.
• True political and ethical progress requires breaking down internal resistances to new knowledge and empathy.

"If you break down the resistance in the mind, you are more likely to free yourself for the struggle for political justice."
— Jacqueline Rose [55:05]

7. Psychoanalysis as an Epistemological Tool

[69:01] Audience Q&A, Jacqueline Rose:

• Psychoanalysis is less about "putting a nation on the couch" and more about providing a methodology to escape binary positions and open up spaces for critical reflection and complicated, non-aligned alliances.
• Rose rejects the notion of being strictly “anti-Zionist,” advocating instead for nuanced criticism and the ethical importance of holding contradictory truths together.

8. The Ethical Strong Subject vs. the Fractured Subject

[79:36] Audience Q&A, Jacqueline Rose:

• Question raised: Is there value in a "strong" subject (confident, able to act), not just the fractured or ambivalent subject favored by psychoanalysis?
• Rose acknowledges the need for assertive, affirming identities for the marginalized, without letting those identities calcify into forms that perpetuate violence or death.

"There’s affirmation and affirmation…there’s a way of affirming oneself as an identity...but without fossilizing into a culture of death."
— Jacqueline Rose [82:12]

9. The Struggle Over Words and Representation

[85:00] Audience Q&A, Rose and Moore:

• The Israeli/Palestinian conflict has also been a "semiotic" war—the language of state and power (whose suffering can be spoken, acknowledged, or erased).
• Rose points to the enduring radicalism and affirmation in Palestinian literature as a form of resistance.
• The struggle over words and identity is central: literature, testimony, and language can affirm existence and resist erasure, even in catastrophic circumstances.

"I think it is a struggle over words… but I wouldn’t be a literary person if I didn’t think the struggle over words mattered. And I really think it does."
— Jacqueline Rose [86:15]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [14:55] Rose: "If I'm involved in identity politics at all, it's one that knows that identity is precarious and endlessly modulated and not fixed…"
• [29:57] Rose: "What psychoanalysis says is that everybody knows whether they're a man or a woman, but the unconscious knows better… that's a myth, that's a fantasy, that's a dream, and that's a lie. I would go further."
• [49:12] Rose: "There’s no final explanation as to why somebody does it [becomes a suicide bomber]... For me, that's a source of comfort, that there's something that can't be finally explained."
• [55:05] Rose: "If you break down the resistance in the mind, you are more likely to free yourself for the struggle for political justice."
• [77:05] Rose: "We really have to ask why it is seen as ethically superior to drop bombs on Dresden from a height than to commit an act of suicide."
• [86:15] Rose: "I think it is a struggle over words… but I wouldn’t be a literary person if I didn’t think the struggle over words mattered. And I really think it does."

Timestamps for Significant Segments

• Opening on psychoanalysis, nationalism, violence — [00:00-03:27]
• Introduction of themes by Stephen Frosh (letter to Rose) — [03:50-13:36]
• Rose on fiction, identity, and the role of literature — [13:40-19:57]
• Discussion on literature vs cinema/arts in shaping identity — [21:00-26:22]
• Specificity and radicalism of psychoanalysis — [26:54-30:35]
• Freud, Zionism, and nationalism then vs. now — [35:40-42:14]
• Multiplicity and freeze-points of identity (conversation with Moore) — [44:05-46:58]
• Material vs. symbolic suffering (suicide bombers, TRC) — [49:06-51:40]
• Political and psychoanalytic resistance, Holocaust, Israel — [53:09-56:11]
• Q&A: Iraq, sectarian violence, fundamentalism & psychoanalysis — [58:05-64:02]
• Audience Q&A: media divisiveness, narcissism of minor differences — [65:23-68:32]
• Psychoanalysis as epistemological device — [69:01-72:23]
• Certainty vs. suggestiveness in theory (role of ethics) — [72:28-74:55]
• Palestinian semiotic and military conquest, literature as resistance — [75:00-79:28]
• Strength/affirmation vs. fracture in political subjects — [79:36-83:18]
• Words, critique of Israel, hope for change, role of international pressure — [83:26-86:15]

Language and Tone

The discussion is nuanced, intellectual, and at times highly lyrical, reflecting the scholarly backgrounds of the speakers. There is an openness to ambiguity and a focus on complexity rather than certitude. While the episode grapples with dark, difficult topics, it also emphasizes the importance of hope, ethical reflection, and the ongoing struggle to create meaning and justice through words, fiction, and psychoanalytic practice.

This summary encapsulates the main themes, arguments, and memorable intellectual moments of "The Last Resistance" LSE podcast episode, providing a rich and structured guide for listeners and readers alike.