On the Slippery Tropes of We-ness

The performative aesthetics of transgression occur as perpetrators “will” the unwillable desire of the introjected m(Other) experienced in fantasy in modes that include superegotistical enjoyment projected outward in forms of sadistic cruelty. Such macabresque pursuits assume surrogate forms of desire, in surplus cruelty, in the gratuitous sadism of absolute power. Superegotistical desire and its “enjoyment” are sustained by supererogatory reifications that revel in moral masochism and sadistic moralism. This leads to macabresque aesthetics and theatricality of performative transgression since the laws of jouissance, its prohibition and pursuit in substitute forms, must be repeated again and again. This chapter links a Lacanian theory of language to the psychic origins of collective perceptions in mass violence and human violation.