Die Corona-Pandemie und der hysterische Diskurs nach Lacan: Eine Diskursbestimmung am Beispiel #allesdichtmachen

In this article the video clips uploaded under the hashtag #allesdichtmachen at the end of April 2021 are analyzed as ironically and satirically exaggerated characterizations of the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) discourse. Drawing on Lacan‘s discourse of the hysteric, the following starting point for the analysis is used: the citizens as divided subjects ($) protest and demand that the other (the federal government) delivers (S1) what they desire (e.g. absolute security). The other subsequently produces solutions (S2, e.g. to issue measures against the COVID-19) which, however, do not solve the fundamental lack (a) but actually lead to further demands from the citizens ($). The suppression of object petit a in the discourse of the hysteric is addressed in the video clips as the illusion of absolute security using the example of the inevitability of death. The drifting of desire, which is characteristic of the hysteric‘s social bond, results in demanding continuously new measures against the corona virus. The self-developed measures which are promoted in many video clips are interpreted as attempts at completion of the other and identification with the master. Anxiety is linked to the hysteric‘s desire for an unfulfilled desire. The article concludes with a discussion on how the discursive configuration can be challenged and evolves from the discourse of the hysteric to the discourse of the analyst and from the Kleinian paranoid-schizoid position to the depressive position.