Those who view September u in terms of the U. S. government's failure to secure its citizens and its territory might respond to this loss by positing another power and by tracing the workings of this other power throughout the sociopolitical terrain. For them, the lost sense of American invincibility is accompanied by the loss of a signifying authority, one capable of providing meaning, of authorizing an explanation for the events of 9 I 11. They don't accept the authority of the administration's signification of the event. Instead, they focus on the "rottenness and decay" underlying political and state power.
Lacan's teachings on psychosis help specify this site of crisis and loss. In Seminar III, he distinguishes between the psychotic and the normal subject: "What characterizes a normal subject is precisely that he never takes seriously certain realities that he recognizes exist. You are surrounded by al sorts of realities about which you are in doubt, some of which are particularly threatening, but you don't take them fully seriously, for you think . . . that the worst is not always certain, and maintain yourselves in an average, ba�ic-in the sense of relation to the base-state of blissful uncertainty, which makes possible for you a suficiently relaxed existence. Surely, certainty is the rarest of things for the normaJ subject:'37 The normal person has a lot of doubt, but he doesn't let these doubts get in the way of his everyday functioning. There are many things he doesn't know for sure, but this doesn't bother him. He doesn't worry about it. In fact, his happy persistence requires him not to ask questions or look too closely at things. The normal subject carries on in an uncertain world where many things are unknown and lies are p ervasive. Indeed, Lacan says, "the normal subject spontaneously rejects certainty"; he may deny the truth that is right before his eyes just so he can keep on going ( 76).
In contrast, for the psychotic, Lacan explains, "reality is not the issue;' certainty is ( 75) . What he is certain of may wel be ambiguous, unclear, opaque. But the psychotic is certain, nonetheless. And this certainty does not correspond directly with reality. Reality isn't at stake. After al, normal subjects persist in a terrain of reality filled with uncertainty and falsity. The psychotic rejects this ambiguityj the ambiguity of the everydaY, of language, replacing it with certainty. Lacan notes that the psychotic's certainty is often expressed through writing. The paranoid write, they produce "sheets of paper covered with writing." Schreber, for example, published his writings on his psychosis, which raises the question for La can of what the need for recognition might mean ( 78). Perhaps it might be a need for acknowledgment or community as a way of lessening the unbearable and direct confrontation with power alone. Perhaps Schreber's desire for recognition is a desire for conversation and camaraderie, for others with whom he might discuss and compare his findings such that he might escape the isolation of his certainty. Networked communication technologies provide ways of meeting this need.
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