Seven notes on democracy

Caspar David Friedrich, The Monk by the Sea (1808-10). Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin. (These notes share a common thread that could be described as a crossing between Lacan and Lefort. I didn't intend it that way, but while preparing some thoughts for a recent talk on democracy, I realized my writing kept circling around those two references. From Lacan, the notion of constitutive lack. From…