Of course, the mode of perception of this »end of Oedipus« depends
on the standpoint of the theoretician: there are those who see in it a
distopian prospect of individuals regressing to pre-symbolic psychotic
immersion, of losing the symbolic distance which sustains the minimum of
critical/reflective attitude (the idea that computer functions as a maternal
Thing which »swallows« the subject who entertains towards it an
attitude of incestuous fusion) - in short, today, in the digitalized universe
of simulation, Imaginary overlaps with the Real, at the expense of the Symbolic
(Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio). On the other hand, there are those who
emphasize the liberating potential of cyberspace: cyberspace opens up the
domain of shifting multiple sexual and social identities, potentially at least
liberating us from the hold of the patriarchal Law, it as it were realizes in
our everyday practical experience the »deconstruction« of old
metaphysical binaries (»real Self« versus »artificial
mask,« etc.); in cyberspace, I am compelled to renounce any fixed symbolic
identity, the legal/political fiction of a unique Self guaranteed by my place
in the socio-symbolic structure - in short, according to this second version
(Sandy Stone, Sherry Turkle), cyberspace announces the end of the Cartesian
cogito as the unique »thinking substance.« Of course, from this
second point of view, the pessimist prophets of the psychotic »end of
Oedipus« in the universe of simulacra simply betray their inability to
imagine an alternative to Oedipus.