Inso­far as sym­bolic cas­tra­tion is also one of the names of the gap between my imme­di­ate stu­pid being and my sym­bolic title (recall the pro­ver­bial dis­ap­point­ment of an adoles­cent: is that miser­able cow­ard really my father?), and since a sym­bolic author­ity can only func­tion inso­far as, in a kind of ille­git­im­ate short-cir­cuit, this gap is obfus­cated and my sym­bolic author­ity appears as an imme­di­ate prop­erty or qual­ity of me as a per­son, each author­ity has to pro­tect itself from situ­ations in which this gap becomes palp­able. For example, polit­ical lead­ers know very well how to avoid situ­ations in which their impot­ence would have been revealed; a father knows how to hide from the gaze of his son his humi­li­at­ing moments (when his boss shouts at him, etc.). What is pro­tec­ted by such strategies of “sav­ing one’s face” is appear­ance: although I know very well my father is ulti­mately impot­ent, I refuse to believe it, which is why the effect of wit­ness­ing the open dis­play of his impot­ence can be so shat­ter­ing. Such humi­li­at­ing moments fully deserve to be called “cas­trat­ing exper­i­ences,” not because father is shown cas­trated-impot­ent, but because the gap between his miser­able real­ity and his sym­bolic author­ity is rendered palp­able and can no longer be ignored

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