Adolescence, that unique period when the subject must detach themselves from parental authority,1 reveals a gap in knowledge about sex. Each individual must invent their own response to the real of puberty. But today, with the impact of the virtual world, knowledge is no longer to be sought in the Other.2
Up until a certain point in time, civilisations and religions developed under the aegis of the Father. Patriarchy as a form of social organisation seemed to be an anthropological constant.3 The fall of traditional authority figures has rendered obsolete the idea of one Name-of-the-Father, once capable of showing the way forward. Adolescents are particularly affected by this symbolic shift, which includes the decline of patriarchy.4 Their relationship to meaning, lack and fantasy is decisive in helping them cope with their encounter with sexuality, and impacts their propensity towards a passage to the act.5 Some rely on their upbringing, while others, deprived, will face a jouissance that can be unleashed.
The increase in knife attacks among adolescents bears witness to this. In France, recent events illustrate this violence: a boy killing a stranger after losing a video game; a high school student murdering a classmate, with fifty-seven stab wounds; a teenager slitting his twin brother's throat. At school, at home or on the street, the Other is not there.
The British series Adolescence on Netflix, created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, is inspired by real events in England: boys attacking girls with knives.
The series invites us to reflect on the malaise of adolescence, family life and hatred in the digital age. It questions this universe, where the instinctual enjoyment of the One prevails over transmission,6 with parents confused by the generational gap created by social media.
Thirteen-year-old Jamie, kills Katie with seven knife wounds.
Her parents struggle to believe it. Psychological evaluation reveals her mental fragility and her motives: her discomfort with masculinity, the harmful knot of death drive and misuse of social media. In the solitude of his jouissance without the Other, Jamie encounters the rhetoric of masculinist communities on social media advocating that men emasculated by feminism, are victims of women.
With the aim of re-masculinisation, they seek to put women back in their place, as if The place of The woman existed. Mocked and rejected for his masculinity by Katie, Jamie responds with murder, showing that a woman's body can provoke hatred and violence in those who, confronted by the real, try to extract it by striking out at the other.7
[1] S. Freud, "Family Romances," The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. IX, 1908, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1959), 235–241.
[2] J.-A. Miller, "In the Direction of Adolescence," The Lacanian Review, no. 4, 2018.
[3] Jacques-Alain Miller, "Lacan, professeur de désir," interview by Charlotte Labbé and Olivier Recasens, Le Point, 6 June 2013, available online: lepoint.fr.
[4] J.-A. Miller, "In the Direction of Adolescence," op. cit.
[5] F. Rollier, "L'adolescence: passage et actes," La Cause du désir 116, 2024, 47–57.
[6] P. Lacadée, "Chronique du malaise: III, L'i-meute du plus-de-jouir," L'Hebdo-blog 318, 25 November 2023.
[7] C. Maugin, "L'attentat sexuel n'est pas sans lien avec la haine envers les femmes," a reading of Actualité de la Haine by A. Lebovits-Quenehen. Available online.
