October. Vol. 40, Television (Spring, 1987), pp. 6-50 Television

Citation preview

Television Author(s): Jacques Lacan, Denis Hollier, Rosalind Krauss and Annette Michelson Reviewed work(s): Source: October, Vol. 40, Television (Spring, 1987), pp. 6-50 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778337 . Accessed: 25/12/2012 03:40 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to October.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Television

I. I always speak the truth. Not the whole truth,because there'sno way, to say it all. Saying it all is literallyimpossible: words fail. Yet it's through this very impossibilitythat the truthholds onto the real. I will confessthen to having triedto respond to the present comedy and it was good only forthe wastebasket. A failurethen,but thereby,actually,a success when compared with an error,or to put it better: with an aberration. And withouttoo much importance, since limited to this occasion. But firstof all, which? The aberrationconsistsin thisidea of speaking so as to be understood by idiots. An idea that is ordinarilyso foreignto me that it could only have been suggestedto me. Through friendship.Beware. For there'sno difference between televisionand the public beforewhom I've spoken fora long time now, a public known as my seminar. A single gaze in both cases: a gaze to which, in neithercase, do I address myself,but in the name of which I speak. Do not, however, get the idea that I address everyone at large.2 I am speaking to those who are savvy, to the nonidiots, to the supposed analysts. 2. The expression Lacan uses is h la cantonade, which, to reinforcethe pun on his own name, he had allowed the transcriptionof his XIth seminar to read as, &la cantonade. See The Four FundamentalConceptsof Psycho-Analysis, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Alan Sheridan, New York, Norton, 1978, p. 208.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

S(s()

(a K $)

:::i:?::::i: :iiiiiii::iii:~l~~ii~~~~~as~sss~L?~i:;;:

__:_:_iii :::::::::: ;::::::: :i-i-i ?----: -: :::::-: ::::::::: ::::':::::'':i: :::::-::::----:----:-_--_ -::_:: _:-:: ::-:--:---:--_:-:--_-:?I :-?:_:i: ::~2: :::: ::::::::: ;-:::::: --:-:--;::::-::_:-:-::.: -i:--2:-: :::d:j::::i:::::: :-:i i:i:~i :_--:::--i-i bi: ::::?::::

:' :::::::'::

::::,:::::::::

;--?? :.i,:::: :::i::::: .: -----::::::_:-si.:_. :: :::-:::~::

:8-r

-e:_-a :j::i: ::::::::::

:::(:?::::_:::: : ::

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

OCTOBER

8

If we consider only the overcrowding,experience shows that what I say there engages many more people than those whom withsome reason I suppose to be analysts. So why then should I use a differenttone here than for my seminar? Besides, I may reasonably suppose there to be analysts listeningnow also. I will go further:I expect ofthe supposed analystsnothing more than theirbeing this object thanksto which what I teach is not a self-analysis.On this point, they alone, among those who are listening, are sure to understand [entendre] me. But even in understandingnothingan analystplays thisrole I have just defined, and as a consequence televisionthus assumes it just as well. I would add that these analystswho are such only insofar as they are object- the object of the analysand-it happens that I do address them, not that I am speaking to them, but that I speak about them: ifonly to disturbthem. Who knows? This could have some effectsof suggestion. Si - S2 Would you believe it? There is one situationin which suggestion is powerless: when the analyst owes his defaultto the other,to the person who has broughthim to "thepass," as I put it, of assertinghimselfas analyst. Happy are those cases in which fictive"passes" pass foran incompletetraining; theyleave room forhope. a

S2

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

9

Television

II. --I think,mydeardoctor,thatI am herenotto tradewitticisms all withyou . . . , butonlytogiveyou theoccasiontoreply.Therefore the most even commonme are the will thinnest, elementary, getfrom you - whata I'll throwoneoutatyou. "Theunconscious place,ofquestions. word!" strange - Freud didn'tfinda betterone, and there'sno need to go back on it. The disadvantage of thisword is thatit is negative, which allows one to assume anythingat all in the world about it, plus everythingelse as well. Why not? To that which goes unnoticed, the word everywhere applies just as well as nowhere. It is nonethelessa very precise thing. There is no unconscious except for the speaking being. The others, who possess being only throughbeing namedeven though they impose themselvesfromwithin the realhave instinct,namely the knowledgeneeded fortheirsurvival. Yet thisis so only forour thought,which mightbe inadequate here. This still leaves the category of homme-sickanimals, who for that reason therebycalled domestics [d'hommestiques], are shaken, howeverbriefly,by unconscious, seismic tremors. It speaks, does the unconscious, so that it depends on language, about which we know so little: despite what under thetermlinguisteryI group whateverclaims- and thisis new-

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

"Theprecondition of theunconscious is language, "

OCTOBER

10

to intervenein men's affairsin the name of linguistics. Linguistics being the science that concerns itselfwith lalangue,3 which I writeas one word, so as to specifyits object, as is done in every other science. This object is nonethelesseminent,since the veryAristotelian notion of the subject comes down to that more legitimatelythan to anythingelse. Which allows forthe grounding of the unconscious in the ex-sistenceof one more subject for the soul. For the soul as the assumed sum of the body's funcanalytichypothesis tions. A mostproblematicsum, despite the factthatfromAristotle to Uexkiill, it has been postulated as though with one voice, and it is stillwhat biologistspresuppose, whetherthey i(a) know it or not. In factthe subject of the unconscious is only in touch with the soul via the body, by introducingthoughtinto it: here conThe onlyrelation tradictingAristotle. Man does not thinkwith his soul, as the hastothe thought soul-bodyis oneof Philosopher imagined. ex-sistence. He thinksas a consequence of the fact that a structure, that of language - the word implies it- a structurecarves up his body, a structurethat has nothing to do with anatomy. Witness the hysteric. This shearing happens to the soul throughthe obsessional symptom:a thoughtthat burdens the soul, that it doesn't know what to do with. Thought is in disharmonywith the soul. And the Greek voVsis the mythof thought'saccommodatingitselfto the soul, accommodating itselfin conformitywith the world, the world (Umwelt)for which the soul is held responsible, whereas the world is merelythe fantasythroughwhich thoughtsustains itThe littlethatreality self-"reality" no doubt, but to be understood as a grimace of derives fromthereal the real. . whichex-sists . through lalangue:

- It'sstillafactthatonecomestoyou, thepsychoanalyst, in order, 3. Lalangue,as one word (without an article or with the article soldered onto the substantive; instead of la langue): general equivocation, universal babble, or "Babelonian."

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Television

11

Thecure- is withinthisworldthatyou reducetofantasy,togetbetter. thatalso a fantasy? - The cure is a demand that originatesin the voice of the sufferer,of someone who suffersfromhis body or his thought. The astonishing thing is that there be a response, and that throughouttime medicine, using words, has hit the bull's-eye. How did thishappen beforethe unconscious was located? In order to work, a practice doesn't have to be elucidated; this is what can be deduced fromthat.

Powerof words

then,by"be-Analysis wouldonlybedistinguishedfrom therapy, This isn't what mean. Let me ingenlightened"? you phrasethequestion and psychotherapy like this: "Bothpsychoanalysis act onlythrough words.Yettheyare in conflict. How so?" --These days there is no psychotherapythat is not expected to be "psychoanalyticallyinspired."My intonationis to indicate the quotation marks the thingdeserves. The distinction maintained there- is it not based solelyon the factthat in the one you don't hit the mat . . . I mean the couch? This gives a running start to those analysts who have stayed in their "institutes"--same quotation marks here-waiting for a "pass," who, because they don't want to know anythingabout it- I mean the "pass"- compensate forit with formalitiesof rank, an elegant way forthem to establishthemselves- those who demonstratemore cunning in theirinstitutional relationsthan in theiranalytical practices. I will now show why this analytical practice is prevalent withinpsychotherapy. There are, insofaras the unconscious is implicated, two sides presentedby the structure,by language. The side of meaning, the side we would identifyas thatof

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Thereis no structure exceptthrough language.

OCTOBER

12

"Thereis no sexual " relation.

d - ($O

D)

analysis, whichpours out a floodof meaning to floatthe sexual boat. It is strikingthat this meaning reduces to non-sense: the non-sense of the sexual relation, somethingthat love stories have, throughouttime, made obvious. Obvious to the point of stridency;which gives a loftypicture of human thought. There is, moreover,meaning thatis taken forgood sense, thateven assertsitselfas common sense. This is the high-point ofcomedy, except thatin comedy awareness ofthe nonrelation involved in gettingit off,gettingit offsexually, must be included. Thereby our dignityis recharged, even relieved. Good sense is the formsuggestiontakes, comedy, that of laughter. Setting aside their quasi-incompatibility,does this mean that theyare the whole story?That's the point at which psychotherapy,in any form,breaksdown, not thatit doesn'tdo some good, but it's a good that's a returnto what's worse. Whence the unconscious, namely the insistencethrough which desire manifestsitself,in other words the repetitionof the demand workingthroughit- isn'tthatwhat Freud says of it at the very moment he discovers it? whence the unconscious, if it is true that the structurerecognized as producing, as I say, language out of lalanguedoes indeed order it, reminds us that to the side of meaning that fascinatesus in speech-in exchange for which being-this being whose thoughtis imagined by Parmenides- acts as speech's screenreminds us, I conclude, that to the side of meaning the study of language opposes the side of the sign. How is it thateven the symptom,or thatwhichis so called in analysis, failed to mark out a path in this matter?Such was the situation until Freud, whose docility before the hysteric was needed forhim to read dreams, slips, even jokes, as one deciphers a message in code. - Provethatthatis actuallywhatFreudsays,and all he says.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

13

Television

- Let one simplygo to Freud's textsgrouped under those three headings-their titlesare now trivial- and one will see that it is about nothingotherthan a decipheringof pure signifyingdi-mention[dit-mension]. Namely that one of these phenomena is naively articulated: articulatedmeans verbalized, naively means according to vulgar logic, lalanguesusage as it is commonly received. To see also that by making his way througha tissue of puns, metaphors, metonymies,Freud evokes a substance, a fluidicmythtitratedforwhat he calls libido. But what he is really performing,there rightbefore our very eyes glued to the text, is a translationwhich reveals that thejouissancethatFreud impliesthroughthe termprimaryprocess properlyconsistsin the logical straitsthroughwhich he so artfullyleads us. All you have to do, as the wisdom of the Stoics had achieved so early on, is to distinguishthe signifierfromthe signified(to translate,as did Saussure, theirLatinized names), so as to witnessphenomena of equivalence appearing therein such a way thatone can understandhow, forFreud, theycould provide the figureof the machineryof an energetics. An effortof thoughtis needed to found linguisticsout of that. Out of its object, the signifier.There is no linguistwho isn'tattachedto theproject ofdetachingit, as such, and in particular, frommeaning. I've talked about a side ofthe sign in orderto markwithin it its association withthe signifier.But the signifierdiffersfrom the sign in that its inventoryis already a given of lalangue. To speak of a code doesn't work, preciselybecause it presupposes meaning. The signifyinginventory of lalanguesupplies only the cipher of meaning. According to context,each word takes on an enormous and disparate range of meaning, meaning whose heteroclitecondition is oftenattestedto by the dictionary. This is no less trueforwhole partsof organized sentences.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Freud'spractice

S

Lalangue is the precondition of meaning.

14

OCTOBER

As in this sentence: les non-dupes withwhich I've geared errent,4 this myself year. No doubt theirgrammar is buttressedby writing,and it bears witness,forall that,to a real, to a real which remains, as we know, an enigma as long as in analysis the pseudo-sexual L'objet (a) springdoesn'tpop out: thatreal which,capable only oflyingto the partner,is marked as neurosis, perversion,or psychosis. "I do not love him [or her]," is sustained, Freud teaches within this series by reverberatingagainst the real. us, In fact,it is because every signifier,fromthe phoneme to the sentence,can serve as a coded message (a "personal,"as the radio was wont to say during the war), that it emerges as obIs onesignifier enough ject and thatone discoversthatit is what determinesthatin the tofoundthesignifier world- the world of the speaking being- One occurs [ily a de One? l'Un], that is to say, element occurs, the Greek arroix~ov. What Freud discoversin the unconscious- here I've only been able to inviteyou to take a look at his writingsto see if I fromrealizing that speak truly- is somethingutterlydifferent one can a sexual broadly speaking give meaning to everything one knows, forthe reason that knowinghas always been open to the famous metaphor(the side of meaningJung exploited). It is the real that permits the effectiveunknottingof what makes the symptomhold together,namely a knotof signifiers. Where here knottingand unknottingare not metaphors, but are really to be taken as those knots that in fact are built up throughdeveloping chains of the signifyingmaterial. For these chains are not of meaning but of enjoy-meant which you can writeas you wish, as is implied by [jouis-sens]5 the punning that constitutesthe law of the signifier. I thinkI have given to the specificrecourseofpsychoanal4. The titleLacan gave to his 1972-73 seminar--his XXIst--was "Les non-dupes errent"(the non-dupes err), a homophonic play on lesnornsdupkre(the names of the father), which was the titlehe had announced ten years earlier forwhat was to become in 1963, his last seminar at Sainte-Anne. A seminar of only one meeting, its transcript is published on pp. 81-95. 5. jouis-sens, homonym ofjouissance.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

15

Television

ysisquite anotherdimensionthan thatofthe generalconfusion we're used to.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

. ..

..... .:.

-_:l: :i:::i ::jI:;-:::............ ............

............... ::........... ..........::: ...........:::: ......... ... ... ....

ME,:~

.......... . or ::::

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

17

Television

III. - Thepsychologists, all the thepsychiatrists, thepsychotherapists, - it'stherankandfile,thosewhoareroughing mental-health workers it, their shoulders. onto the world's whoaretakingall theburdens misery of And theanalyst,meanwhile? One thing is certain: to take the misery onto one's shoulders, as you put it, is to enter into the discourse that determinesit, even if only in protest. Merely to say this puts me in a position that some will locate as a condemnation of politics. That, so far as I'm concerned, I take to be out of the question for anyone. Anyway, the psycho-so-and-soes,of whatever sort they may be, busying themselves at your supposed burdening, oughtn't to be protesting,but collaborating. Whether they know it or not, that'swhat they'redoing. It's ratherconvenient- though I may be offeringan easy means of retaliation against myself--all too convenient, this idea of discourse, forreducingjudgment to its determinants. better I'm struckby the way in whichtheyactuallyfind'nothing to oppose me with; "intellectualism,"theysay. This carries no weight,when one wants to know who's right. Even less, because in relatingthismiseryto the discourse of the capitalist, I denounce the latter. Only, here, I point out that in all seriousnessI cannot do -

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

$

a

18

OCTOBER

this, because in denouncing it I reinforceit--by normalizing it, that is, improvingit. At this point I will interjecta remark. I do not base this idea of discourse on the ex-sistenceof the unconscious. It is the unconscious that I locate throughit- it ex-sistsonly througha Onlyanalytic discourse. discourse gives You understand this so clearly that you've annexed, to ex-sistence to the as this unconscious, project I've acknowledged as a vain one, a question conFreudian,. . . cerning the futureof psychoanalysis. The unconscious therebyex-sistsall the more in thatsince it is witnessed clearly only in the discourse of the hysteric, what's to be found everywhereelse is just graftedonto it: yes, even, astonishingas itmay seem, in the discourseoftheanalyst, where what is made of it is culture. which was ... By way of a parenthesishere: does the unconscious imply listenedto before, but that it be listened to? To my mind, yes. But this surelydoes else. as something not implythat,withoutthe discourse throughwhichit ex-sists, one judges it as knowledge that does not think,or calculate, or judge--which doesn't prevent it frombeing at work (as in This knowledge is dreams, forexample). Let's say that it is the ideal worker,the at work .. one Marx made the flowerof capitalisteconomy in thehope of seeing him take over the discourse of the master; which, in effect,is what happened, althoughin an unexpectedform.There w.ithouta master. are surprisesin these mattersof discourse; that is, indeed, the S2 //S1. point of the unconscious. What I call the analyticdiscourse is the social bond determined by the practice of an analysis. It derives its value from its being placed amongst the most fundamentalof the bonds which remain viable forus. - Butyouyourself areexcluded fromthatwhichmakes forsocial bondsbetween . . aren't analysts, you - The Association--so-called International, although

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Television

19

that is a bit of a fiction,having been forso long now limitedto a familybusiness- I stillknew it in the hands of Freud's direct and adopted descendants; ifI dared - but I warn you thathere I am both judge and plaintiff,hence partisan--I would say that at present it is a professional insurance plan against analytic discourse. The PIPAAD. Damned PIPAAD! They want to know nothing of the discourse that determines them. But they are not therebyexcluded from it; far fromit, since theyfunctionas analysts,which means thatthere are people who analyze themselvesbymeansofthem. So theysatisfythisdiscourse, even ifsome of its effectsgo unrecognizedby them. On thewhole, theydon'tlack prudence; and even ifit isn'tthe true kind, it mightbe the do-good kind. Besides, they are the ones at risk. So let's turn to the psychoanalystand not beat about the bush. Though what I am going to say is to be foundunder that bush just as well. Because thereis no betterway of placing him objectively than in relation to what was in the past called: being a saint. During his lifea saint doesn't command the respectthat a halo sometimes gets forhim. No one noticeshim as he followsBalthasar Gracian's Way of Life-- that of renouncing personal brilliance--something thatexplains whyAmelot de la Houssaye thoughthe was writing about the courtier. A saint's business, to put it clearly, is not caritas.Rather, he acts as trash[dichet];his business being trashitas [ il dicharite]. Theobjet(a) So as to embody what the structureentails, namely allowing incarnate the subject, the subject of the unconscious, to take him as the cause of the subject's own desire. In fact it is throughthe abjection of this cause that the subject in question has a chance to be aware of his position, at least within the structure.For the saint, this is not amusing, but I imagine that fora fewears glued to thisTV it converges with many of the oddities of the acts of saints.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

OCTOBER

20

That it produces an effectofjouissance- who doesn't "get" the meaning [sens]along with the pleasure [joui]? The saint alone stays mum; fat chance of gettinganythingout of him. That is really the most amazing thing in the whole business. Amazing forthose who approach it withoutillusions: the saint is the refuseofjouissance. Sometimes, however, he takes a break, which he's no more contentwiththan anyone else. He comes [jouit]. He's no longer working at that point. It's not as if the smart alecks aren'tlyingin wait hoping to profitfromit so as to pump themselves up again. But the saint doesn't give a damn about that, any more than he does about those who consider it to be his just deserts. Which is too sidesplitting. Because not givinga damn fordistributivejustice eitheris where he most oftenstartedfrom. The saint doesn't really see himselfas righteous,which doesn'tmean thathe has no ethics.The onlyproblemforothers is that you can't see where it leads him. I beat my brain against the hope that some like these will reappear. No doubt because I, myself,didn'tmanage to make it. The more saints, the more laughter; that'smy principle, to wit, the way out of capitalistdiscourse- which will not constituteprogress, if it happens only forsome.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

21

Television

IV. - For thetwenty forwardyour yearsthatyou havebeenputting - whatis said in likea language6 is structured phrase- theunconscious toyou, in various words,words, forms,is: "Thosearemerely opposition thatdoesn't words.Andwhatdoyoudo withanything getmixedup with or thedrives?" or affect, words?Whatofpsychicenergy, - You are now imitatingthe gestureswithwhichone puts on the appearance of an heir in the PIPAAD. Because, as you know, at least in the Paris PIPAAD, the only elementsof sustenance come frommy teaching. It filters throughfromeverywhere;it's a draft,which becomes a blizzard when it blows too strongly.So you revivethe old gestures, you get warm by snuggling.togetherand calling that a Congress. Because I'm notjust thumbingmy nose today forthe fun of it, pulling out the PIPAAD storyto make people laugh at theTV. It's the way Freud purposelyconceivedofthe organization to which he bequeathed this analytic discourse. He knew thatit would be a hard test; the experienceofhis firstfollowers had already been edifyingin that regard.

This phrase firstappeared in Lacan's Report to the Rome Congress of 1953, 6. "The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis." See Ecrits, trans. Alan Sheridan, New York, Norton, 1977, pp. 30-113.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

22

OCTOBER

-

The libidinalmyth

Let'stakethequestionofnaturalenergy first.

- Natural energy--that's another medicine ball used to prove that on that point as well one's got ideas. Energy--it's you who added the tag natural,because in what they say, it goes withoutsayingthatenergyis natural: somethingto be expended, insofaras a dam can storeit and make it useful. However, it's not because the dam looks picturesque in a landscape that energy is natural. That a "lifeforce"should constitutethat expenditureis a crude metaphor. Because energyis not a substance, which,for example, improvesor goes sour withage; it's a numerical constantthat a physicisthas to findin his calculations, so as to be able to work. To work in accordance withwhat has been fostered,from Galileo to Newton, as a purely mechanical dynamics-with what formsthe core of that which is called, more or less correctly,a physics- somethingstrictlyverifiable. Without this constant,which is merelya combination of calculations . . . you have no more physics. It's generally thoughtthatthat'sthe physicists'business and thattheyadjust the equivalences between masses, fields,and impulses so thata number gets pulled out that complies with the principleof the conservation of energy. But still, such a principle has to be stated in order fora physicsto meet the requirementof verifiability; it is, as Galileo put it, a factexperimentallyproduced by a theory.Or, to put it better:the conditionthat the system be mathematicallyclosed prevails even over the assumption that it is physicallyisolated. That's notjust ofmy own devising. Each and everyphysicist knows clearly, that is to say, in a readily articulatedmanner, that energy is nothing other than the numerical value of a constant. [chiffre] Now, what Freud articulatesas primaryprocessin the unconscious- and this is me speaking here, but you can look it up and you'd see it--isn't something to be numerically ex-

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Television

23

but to be deciphered [se dichiffre]. I mean: No meansof pressed [se chiffre], an establishing In itself. it which case doesn't result in jouissance energy, and energetics of can't be registeredas such. jouissance The schemas of the second topography through which Freud trieshis hand at it, the celebrated chicken'segg, forexample, are on the order of a "pudendum" and would deserve analysis, ifone were to analyze the Father. Now, I hold thatit is out of the question to analyze the real Father; farbetterthe cloak of Noah when the Father is imaginary. So that I preferto ask myselfwhat distinguishesscientific discourse from the hysteric'sdiscourse, in which it must be said thatFreud, in gatheringher honey, was not out of thepicture. Because what he inventsis the workof the bee, who does not think,nor calculate, norjudge - namely,what I've already referredto here; when, afterall, that mightnot be what von Frisch thinksabout it. I conclude that scientificdiscourse and the hysteric'sdiscourse have almostthe same structure,which explains our error, induced by Freud himself,in hoping that one day there would be a thermodynamicable to provide- withinthe future of science- the unconscious with its posthumous explanation. We can say thatafterthree-quartersof a century,thereis not the slightesthint of such a promise's bearing fruit,and even thatthe very idea recedes of backing the primaryprocess up with the principle which, if pleasure were its only claim, would demonstratenothing,save thatwe cling to the soul like Being Well-spoken say wherethe a tickto a dog's hide. Because what else is the famouslowering doesn't Good is. of tensionwithwhichFreud linkspleasure, otherthantheethics of Aristotle? This cannot be the same hedonism as thatwhich the Epicureans used as theirinsignia. To be insultedand called swine forthis insignia, which now means only the psyche, theymust have had somethingquite precious to hide, more secret even than the Stoics had. However thatmay be, I've limitedmyselfto Nicomachus and Eudemus, thatis to Aristotle,so as stronglyto distinguish

$--w S,

s

aa I"5

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

24

OCTOBER

from it the ethics of psychoanalysis--a path I spent a whole year clearing.

No harmonyfor the beingin theworld...

. . . if it speaks.

It's the same old thingwhen it comes to the storyof my supposed neglect of affect. I just want an answer on thispoint: does an affecthave to do with the body? A discharge of adrenalin--is that body or not? It upsets its functions,true. But what is there in it that makes it come fromthe soul? What it discharges is thought. So you have to consider whether my idea that the unconscious is structuredlike a language allows one to verifyaffectmore seriously- than the idea thatit is a commotionfrom which a betterarrangementemerges. Because that'swhat they oppose me with. Does what I say about theunconscious go furtherthan expecting affectto fall, adequate, into your lap? This adaequatio, being even more grotesque by coming on top of yet another one - really stacked- this time conjoining rei- of the thing-with affectus-theaffectwherebyit will get repigeonholed. We had to make it into our centuryfor doctors to come up with that one.

All I've done is rerelease what Freud statesin an articleof 1915 on repression,and in others that returnto this subject, namely that affectis displaced. How to appreciate this disFor thebody, placement, if not so the basis of the subject, which is presupis the metonymy posed by the factthatit has no bettermeans of occurringthan rule .. throughrepresentation? All that business I explain in referenceto his "gang"- to pinpoint it the way he did, since I'm forcedto recognize that I'm also dealing withthe same one. Except I've demonstrated, . . becausethe by turningto his correspondencewithFliess (in theexpurgated ? subject of thought edition of this correspondence,the only one we have) that the is metaphorized. said representation,specificallyrepressed,is nothingless than the structure, and precisely insofar as it is linked to the

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

25

Television

postulateof the signifier.Cf. letter52: thispostulate is written there.7 To accuse me of neglectingaffect,so as to puffoneselfup as the one who stressesit--could you make the claim unless you'd forgottenthat I'd devoted one year, the last year of my commitmentat Sainte-Anne, to dealing with anxiety?8 Some people know the constellationin which I placed it. Flutter, blockage, distress, differentiatedas such and from that affectis not something I each other, prove sufficiently make lightof. It is true that it was forbiddento analysts in trainingin PIPAAD to listen to me at Sainte-Anne. the I don't regret it. Indeed, I affectedmy world so deeply thatyear, by foundinganxietyon the object to which it relates - far frombeing objectless (which is what psychologistshave stuckto, unable to go furtherthan its distinctionfromfear)foundingit, as I was saying, on the abject [abjet]that I have come to call my object petita9- so deeply that someone from my circle got dizzy to the point (a repressed dizziness) of almost dropping- in the formof such an object- me. Reconsidering affecton the basis of my sayingsleads one back in any case to the secure part of what has been said about it. The mere subsectioning of the passions of the soul, as Saint Thomas more accuratelynames these affects,the subsectioningsince Plato of these passions on the model of the body: Now unexpurgated in J. M. Masson, ed., The Complete 7. LettersofSigmundFreud to WilhelmFliess, 1887-1904, Cambridge, Harvard UniversityPress, 1985, p. 207, letterdated December 6, 1896. Sainte-Anne is the psychiatrichospital where Lacan gave his seminars until 8. the 1963 break (see note 4). The 1962-63 seminar (the Xth) was devoted to "Anxiety." 9. Objetpetita: the object small a. Since the lettera stands forthe initial letterof autre(the small otheras opposed to the big one, the Other), objeta has been anglicized by some translatorsas object o. Phonetic considerations, however, led us to retain the French: objeta's becoming abject;the privative functionof the prefixa; the homonymy with petittas, littlepile.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

26

OCTOBER

or over-heart;doesn't head, heart, even, as he says ELrtOvioda, this already testifyto the need to approach them via the body, a body which is, I say, affectedonly by the structure? I shall indicate fromwhichend one could projecta serious follow-up,understoodas serial, to what can be claimed by the unconscious in such an effect. For example, we qualify sadness as depression, because we give it soul for support, or the psychological tension of PierreJanet, the philosopher. But it isn'ta state of the soul, it is simplya moral failing,as Dante, and even Spinoza, said: a sin, which means a moral weakness, which is, ultimately,loThereis no ethic cated only in relation to thought, that is, in the duty to be besidethatof the Well-spoken, to find one's way in dealing with the unconWell-spoken, . . . scious, with the structure. And if ever this weakness, as reject of the unconscious, ends in psychosis, there followsthe returnto the real of that which is rejected, that is, language; it is the manic excitation throughwhich such a returnbecomes fatal. In contrast with sadness there is the Gay Science [gay which is a virtue. A virtue absolves no one from sfavoir],10 sin--which is, as everyoneknows, original. The virtue that I designate as the Gay Science exemplifiesit, by showingclearly ofwhat it consists:not understanding,not a divingat themeanS .no knowledge ing, but a flyingover it as low as possible withoutthe mean. besidesthatof non-sense. ing's gumming up this virtue, thus enjoying [jouir] the deciphering,which implies thatin the end Gay Science cannot but meet in it the Fall, the returninto sin. Where in all thisis what makes forgood luck [bonheur]?" Strictlyspeaking everywhere.The subject is happy-go-lucky [heureux].It is his very definitionsince he can owe nothingif In the"rendez-vous"not to luck, to fortunein otherwords, and any piece of luck is withthe(a), .. good as somethingto maintain him, insofaras it repeats itself. What is astonishing is not that he is happy without 10. Provengal troubadours used the expressiongai savoir[gay science] to designate their poetry. 11. For thishomophonic play on bonheur (happiness), see Lacan's VIIth Sbninaire: Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1986, p. 22, "Happiness,afterall, L'thique de la psychanalyse, that's also happen,an encounter."

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Television

27

suspectingwhat reduces him to this state- his dependence on the structure--butthat he gets an idea of beatitude, an idea which is forcefulenough forhim to feelhimselfexiled fromit. Happily, on this point we have the poet giving the game away: Dante, whom I've just cited, and others, apart from those sluts who use classicism to filltheirpiggy-banks. A gaze, that of Beatrice- that is to say, a threefoldnothing, a flutteringof the eyelids and the exquisite trash that results from it- and there emerges that Other whom we can identifyonly throughherjouissance:her whom he, Dante, cannot satisfy,because fromher, he can have only thislook, only her utterly; thisobject, but ofwhom he tellsus thatGod fulfills it is preciselyby receivingthe assurance of that fromher own mouth that he arouses us. To which somethingin us replies: annoyance [ennui].A word fromwhich, by making the lettersdance as in the cinematographuntiltheyresettlein a line, I've composed theterm: "oneyance" [unien].By which I designate the identificationof the Other with the One. I would say: the mysticalOne whose crude equivalent is given to us through its comical other-Aristophanes, to name him, struttinghis stuffin Plato's Symposium-presenting the beast-with-two-backsthat he accuses Zeus, who is not responsible for it, of bisecting: it's rather wicked; I've already,said that this is not done. One doesn't involve the real Father in such unseemly behavior. Still, Freud also stumbles on this point: because his allegation with respect to Eros, insofar as he opposes it to Thanatos, as the principle of "life,"is that of unifying,as if, apart froma briefcoiteration,one had ever seen two bodies unite into one. Affect,therefore,befallsa body whose essence it is said is to dwell in language--I am borrowing plumage which sells betterthan my own'2 - affect,I repeat, befallsit on account of 12. The plumage is Heidegger's. See his "Letter on Humanism," Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Kress, New York, Harper & Row, 1977, p. 204, "Only fromthis dwelling 'has' he 'language' as the home that preserves the ecstatic forhis essence"; or, p. 239, "Language is at once the house of Being and the home of human beings."

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

. . .f it's woman's jouissance, . . .

theOther finds . . . ex-sistence, . .

. . . butnot substantialOneness.

Because "nothing is in the everything" defilesof the signfier, . . .

OCTOBER

28

is . theaffect discord,. . .

.

its not findingdwelling-room,at least not to its taste. This we call moroseness,or equally, moodiness. Is thisa sin, a grain of madness, or a true touch of the real? You see that with regard to affecttheywould have done better,the PIPAAD, if that'sthe tune theywanted to play, to use my old fiddle. That would have got them fartherthan standing around gaping.

Your inclusion of the drives among the confusionof gesturesused in defenseagainst my discourse lets me offso easily as to preclude my feelinggrateful.For, as you well know- you who transcribedmy XIth seminar withan impeccable brush'3 - who else otherthan myselfmanaged to take the riskof even talkingabout it? For the firsttime, and particularlywith you, I feltI was being listenedto by ears thatwere otherthan morose: namely, the One, as even ears thatdidn'thear me Otherizing[Autrifiais] the person who had invitedme to teach at the Ecole, allowing me to be heard by you, hastened to think."4 Who, upon reading chapters6, 7, 8, 9, and 13, 14 of this Seminar XI, does not sense the advantage of not translating and thedrive Triebby instinct,of keeping close to this drive by calling it drift.drift,of dismantlingand then reassembling its oddity, sticking, all the while to Freud? If you followalong with me there,won't you feel the differencebetweenenergy- whichis a constantthatcan be marked each time in relationto the One, on the basis of which what is experimentalin science is constructed- and theDrangor drive 13. Lacan's 1964 seminar, his XIth, The FourFundamental ConceptsofPsycho-Analysis, which was also the firstto be given afterhis leaving Sainte-Anne, had been published by J.-A. Miller in early 1973, a few months before the Televisioninterview. 14. "Ecole" is not to be confused with"my Ecole" (see pp. 96-105 below), which is the Ecole Freudienne. Here it refersto the Ecole Normale Superieure (also E. N. S. or, metonymically,"Rue d'Ulm") which, followingLacan's departure fromSainteAnne, housed his seminar (from then on institutionallysponsored by the Ecole withRobert Pratique des Hautes Etudes). At about the time of Television,difficulties Flaceliere, Director of the E. N. S., obliged Lacan to findyet another dwelling for his seminar, this time in the Law School buildings (see Lacan's letter to Le monde, pp. 114-115). In 1964, J.-A. Miller was a student at the Ecole Normale.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

29

Television

of the drive which,jouissanceof course, only derives its permanence fromthe rims- I went so faras to give themtheirmathematical form- ofthe body? A permance thatconsistssolelyin the quadruple agency by whicheach drive is sustainedthrough coexistence with three others. It is only as power that four opens onto the disunion that must be warded off,for those whom sex is not sufficientto render partners. What I've just done here is not, of course, the mapping throughwhich I would distinguishneurosis, perversion,and psychosis. That I've done elsewhere, proceeding only according to the detours that the unconscious, in retracingits own steps, transformsinto directroutes. Little Hans's phobia I showed as precisely that: the lane down which he took Freud and his fatherfora walk, but where, ever since, it's the analysts'turn to be frightened.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

I can'tsay Therefore whatyou arefor me.

-j?IB? L'fl~'ll~si~ Ij-,-:i-iil-~-ii-.::i-i-i-i.:i:i- I?i?~~ ~~::~.~;:F~,:I';~~i~-i-i::i-i:-:iii iii-i-i: i-i:~-_-~i-i ;~D':::--:::s::-j:_:::: :i:i::--i-::-:-'--i:i:_--:: -:: ~~--iicB:-iii-ai:i::: -i-i-:-----:--"i..R?i~ii "~~~??~d -::Iii

~::::::::-:j;-:m

-~ii;::~:-i--:::-:i::i: :. iiiiiii 'i~ii:-ii~_ii-g-i ::i _....: .::-:-:: ::-:::::::: ii-':--~--_-:--i--i -:-. ~::_-~--:::---::::-; :: :::-:::-:-:;:::::_::::-:?i-:::i-~::-ii-_r-:,: i::::::i--::--::-::::: -:-::::-:-:'-~

j?:g. ---:_-lr_ !I:-.

i ~~M?a--..a;ii-_i~j-i :-i . ~..,:-::---:dri--i~"-i :--1:::::i:--:( :::-i-::::-:::..::::i_::i::::::-i:::~:l:::_:: i----::::;:: :::-:--l:--:--.-:--i: ?~i:~l~l~i~:il:l;i:::-----::--:-:;:-::: -?-:-_;-i:i-i_-iiiaii:i ::::::::: :::::i:_:-::i:i:::-i:iiliil:~_-l----:-::i-? ii--? .: ii-i:ii.i ?illiri: -iiilili i-iii iii::i:i-i~:--i-.i -~ ii-ii-?-ii:iii:iii-ii-i:--iii-:i::...s -:,i.:::: iiiiiiiiliri_:i::--:-:?-:----::--::ii?'i?i'ii:~ -::?:::ii ii-i: il'i::i-: il-:~:iii~i::-?ir:-~:::r: ii::ii:i-_ i... ':~:-iiiiiiiiii :::i:i::i:l: :-::: ...--:::_::?_ii:-l:-:-: ::::::::_ -:::::::-::I::j::::::

*.?.~ iii::-i:i:i?iiiiii-i ::::::::: -:.:.-..::a l?di~:d~;i

:

:::i-?'E~aF~~

g:~e~,~g~i

-I::::::lii:~~:--~-~ i:-i:l:. i

ii;iiiii~ i-iiiiiiiiiiiii-ii :.:i-iii;ii.~'i ,-i-ii::~-::li_ ~ i,i_. I::.:..::i?~: aiiiii:i"'"'ili?'i:?-iiil.: :iiiii: .:iiiiiii?i:i-:i----i-i~si:i:-::::-; :-:'... ..-:-i:iiiiiii_~i:iiiii -:;.._-iii_ i-ii;i:i

:::::::::::?:::?::::-:::-: ?: i::-:_ -:: :::::::

; -:-:-. -,:::~;-::~:i -i::1;:-:a~i4:i~:i~--:~i??:::~::i_--~,:: iiogii&i2ii%:

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

si-ii -i:i

31

Television

V. - There's a rumor ifwehavesuchbadsex,it'sbecausesexis afoot.: and that'sthefault, in thefirstplace, ofthefamily,and in suppressed, thesecond,of society,and especiallyof capitalism.This requiresan answer. - That's a question- I've been told when chattingabout your questions- thatmightwell be understoodas being about your wanting to be able to answer it, yourself,eventually. That is: if you were asked it, by a voice ratherthan by an individual, a voice inconceivable except as arising fromthe TV, a voice thatdoesn't ex-sist,because it doesn't say anything,the voice nonetheless,in the name ofwhich I make thisanswer exsist, an answer that is interpretation. To put it bluntly, you knowthat I've got an answer to everything,in consideration of which you credit me [vousme pretez]with the question: you place your faithin the proverb that one lend only to the rich. And with good reason. Who doesn'tknow thatit'swiththe analyticdiscourse that I've made it big. That makes me a self-made man.'5There have been others,but not in our lifetime. Freud didn't say that repression comesfromsuppression: that(to paint a picture) castrationis due to what Daddy bran15.

Englishin theoriginal.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

a------

S2

OCTOBER

32

Primaryrepression

The latestin love

dished over his brat playingwithhis wee-wee: "We'll cut it off, no kidding, if you do it again." Naturallyenough, however,it occurredto him, to Freud, to startwith that forthe experiment- as understood through the termsofdefinitionof analyticdiscourse. Let's say thatas he progressedthere,he leaned more toward the idea that repression was primary.That, on the whole, is what tipped the scales toward the second topography. The greediness by which he characterizesthe superego is structural,not an effectof civilization, but "discontent(symptom) in civilization." So that'swhywe have to reexaminethe testcase, takingas a startingpoint the factthatit is repressionthatproduces suppression. Why couldn't the family,societyitself,be creations built from repression? They're nothing less. That, however, may be because the unconscious ex-sists,is motivatedby the structure,that is, by language. Freud is so farfromexcluding this solution that it's in order to come to some decision on it thathe worksso hard on the case of the Wolf Man, a man who ends up in ratherbad shape. Still it would seem that this failure, failureof the case, is relativelyunimportantwhen compared with his success: that of establishingthe real withinthe facts. If this real remains enigmatic, must we attributethis to the analytic discourse, itselfan institution?To get to the bottom of sexuality,we have no recourseotherthan the projectof science, sexologybeing stillonly a project in which, as Freud insists,he has everyconfidence.A confidencethathe admits is gratuitous,which says a lot about his ethics. Now thisanalyticdiscourse impliesa promise: to promote a novelty. And that, awesomely enough, into the field from which the unconscious is produced, since its finesses[impasses] -among other situations to be sure, but it is still the main one - come into play in the game of love. Not that everyone isn't alerted to this noveltythat is the talk of the town- but it doesn't rouse anybody, forthe reason that this novelty is transcendental: the word is to be taken

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

33

Television

under the same sign that it constitutesforthe theoryof numbers, namely mathematically. It is not withoutreason, then, that it takes supportin the name of trans-ference. In order to rouse people around me, I articulate this transferencewith "the subject supposed to know." This contains an explication,an unfoldingofwhat the name only dimly pins down. Namely: that throughthe transferencethe subject is attributedto the knowledgethatgives him his consistencyas a subject of the unconscious, and it is that which is transferred S2 onto the analyst, namely, this knowledge inasmuch as it does not think,or calculate, orjudge, but carrieswithit nonetheless the work-effect. This new path is worthwhateverit's worth,but it's as if I were whistlingin the . . . no, worse: as if I were scaring them out of theirwits. SanctaPIPAADic simplicitas.'16 they don't dare. They dare not followwhere that leads. It's not as ifI don't turnmyselfinside-out!I declaim, "No one authorizesthe analystbut himself."I institute"thepass" in my Ecole, namely the examination of what decides an analysand to asserthimselfas analyst- forcingno one throughit. It hasn't been heard outside yet, I admit, but here inside we're busy with it, and as formy Ecole, I haven't had it that long. It is not that I'm hoping that outside of here the transferencewill cease being viewed as a return-to-sender. That is the attributeof the patient, a singularitythat touches us only in thatit demands our prudence, in evaluating it, first, even more than in handling it. In the formerwe can adjust to it, but in the latterwho knows where we'd be going? What I do know is that the analytic discourse cannot be sustainedby one person only. It is my good fortuneto have fol- The transfinite of discourse lowers. Thus the discourse has a chance. 16. Lacan's acronym is SAMCDA (Soci&te d'assurance mutuelle contre le discours analytique) which, in French, sounds close enough to sancta to prompt the "sancta simplicitas."

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

34

OCTOBER

No amount of excitement- which it stirsup as well- can Theimpossibility lift of away the evidence of a curse on sex, which Freud evokes in the Well-spoken his Discontents. sex, . . . concerning If I've talked of annoyance, of moroseness, in connection with the "divine"approach of love, how can one not recognize that these two affectsare betrayed- throughspeech, and even in deed - in those young people dedicated to relationswithout repression- the most extraordinarythingbeing that the analysts whom they claim as their impetus stare back at them tight-lipped. Even ifthe memoriesof familialsuppressionweren'ttrue, they would have to be invented, and that is certainlydone. That's what mythis, the attemptto give an epic formto what is operative throughthe structure. . it'sin the The sexual impasse [impasse]exudes the fictionsthat ra. . . structure, tionalize the impossible withinwhich it originates. I don't say theyare imagined; like Freud, I read in them the invitationto the real that underwritesthem. The familial order is nothing but the translationof the S .read the fact that the Father is not the progenitor,and thatthe Mother myth . of Oedipus. remains the contaminatorof woman for man's offspring;the remainder followsfromthat. It's not that I value the craving for order we findin this offspring,expressed when he says, "Personally (sic) I loathe anarchy." The definitionof order, as soon as thereis the least littlebit, is that you don't have to crave it, since thereit is: established. The factthat it already happened somewhereis our good fortune,a fortunegood fornothingmore than demonstrating thatthingsare going badly thereforlibertyeven in its sketchiest form. That's simply capitalism set straight.Back to zero, then, forthe issue of sex, since anyway capitalism, thatwas its startingpoint: gettingrid of sex. You've given in to leftism,but not, so far as I know, to

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Television

35

sexo-leftism.'7That's because thelatterrelies solelyon analytic discourse, such as it ex-sistsat the moment. It ex-sistsbadly, managing simply to redouble the curse on sex. In which it shows itselfto be in dread of this ethic that I located in being well-spoken. - Isn'tthatjust therecognition thatonemustexpectnothing from so as how to make love So undergoes? that, psychoanalysisfar learning towardsexology. standably, hopesare directed As I've just suggested, it is actually sexology that you can't expect anythingfrom. There is no way, on the basis of observing just what crosses our senses, namely perversion, that anythingnew in love will ever be constructed. God, however, has ex-sisted so well that paganism has peopled the world with him withoutanyone's being aware of what it was about. That's what we're coming back to. Thank God!, as we say, othertraditionsallow us to believe thattherehave been more sensiblepeople, in Tao forexample. It is a pity that what was meaningfulforthem is withoutimpact forus, leaving our jouissancecold. There's nothing surprising in that, if the Way, as I've said, passes throughthe Sign. If some finesse[impasse]can be demonstratedalong the way-and I mean: asserted through this demonstration- there lies a chance forus to be in touch with the real pure and simple--as that which prevents one fromsaying the wholetruthabout it. -

17. Four years afterthe May'68 studentriots,leftismwas stillquite strongamong intellectuals. During his stay at the Rue d'Ulm, J.-A. Miller was one of the founders of the Cercle d'epistemologie de l'Ecole Normale Superieure. The cover of their journal, Les cahierspour l'analyse,bore Lenin's phrase "Marx's theoryis omnipotent because it is true." Lacan commented on this sentence in "La science et la verite"(his opening seminar for 1965-66), which was published in the journal's firstissue.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Wisdom?

36

Th-s-ayology

OCTOBER

There will be no eros-th-s-ayism[di-eu-re de l'amour]'8until this score is settled,the complex termof which can only be utteredafterbeing twisted.

- Youdon'topposetheyoung, tight-lipped, asyouput it. Certainly one not,sinceyoufiredon them dayat Vincennes with,"Whatyou, as to is You a will have one."19Frankly, Master. revolutionaries, aspire the are discouraging young. you They got on my back, which was the fashion at the time. I had to take a stand. A stand whose truth was so clear that they've been crowdinginto my seminarever since. Preferringmy cool, after all, to the crack of the whip. -

- Fromanother whatgivesyou theconfidence toprophdirection, esytheriseofracism?And whythedevildoyou havetospeakofit? - Because it doesn't strikeme as funnyand yet, it's true. With our jouissancegoing offthe track, only the Other is able to mark its position, but only insofaras we are separated fromthisOther. Whence certainfantasies- unheard of before the meltingpot. Leaving this Other to his own mode ofjouissance,that would only be possible by not imposing our own on him, by not thinkingof him as underdeveloped. Given, too, the precariousness of our own mode, which from now on takes its bearings from the ideal of an overcoming [plus-de-jouir],20which is, in fact,no longer expressed 18. An amalgam of "God" [Dieu] and "what's said" [dire].The marginal note "Th-sis a renderingof Lacan's "Dieu estdire." ayology" 19. See "Impromptu at Vincennes," pp. 116-127. Both "end-of-coming/enjoying" 20. and "excess-of- coming/enjoying."

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

37

Television

in any other way, how can one hope that the emptyformsof disguising our extortions humanhysterianism[humanitairerie] can continue to last? Even ifGod, thus newly strengthened,should end up exsisting,this bodes nothingbetterthan a returnof his baneful past.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

~??-?i i'?:icciiiiiii:i~aiii :,-:':I:,i::::::::::::::r:j:::: Lii:~iiii:::

:i:i~~:i:i:i-i:i~ :::::?:?::'::?_::-?:

::,:::::::::::: ::,:j:::::;:::::::-: :::::::::::j.:~:~: i-i-:,iiiz:iii:liili.~ :::i::e :-::::::':ai :','~ta

I~a_-:-?lilii~ ~Di~Sia~iW~I~:B~iOi~'~ :~-::_~-:~-::-iii::8:-::::::::::::~i~iii~~:i'~;k-~-i19:,:-~iii~iiiR-:-....---:-: ei.:-l~-:~ii;-~i-i-::-r-:i~:i-::::: -:: -::: :i-i-i--~:---: ::-----::::-:-:-:i::_-::-i ~:;~ -li.~~~ '"-?:~~=~~~a i~---~--:i: :'i-'::-''::-?-----:. I-~p-~~ ~ -iiiil--i--i: i----:-i:~:ii ..:.. ati':~r7?:;l~xi;zii~iis-i-_--:i-i-i : ::::-:::j: :::..-i:_:: :-i:~a:i-.:iii~-iiiia-_~:_::-::: iiiiiii--;~~::_sii;--~~:~,-r:i:: -~i:::-i:i-i~ :ii.i:ixi-i-iiiiiii:i-::-::~l:_iii~-i:~ :iiil?i-i ..: '::-: :: i:-iii--.i-i-i:iii-i i;iiiliii:igi~iiiiiirii.i:i ::-ii-iii-iiiai :-:: ::::: ::::_i:i:: --i-i:i: :i:l: i-: ::::I ' -': -: ~i-,:::ii-~ ::?--: ii iii--i::iii :,:iii~-ii~: :..: ..--... i:::iirii??-:e'-i"-iiii'ii:-:~i?i:-~-i:ii-::: :i-iciri;ii:iii--i:-:--:: ?i-i :-.. il:-:-"16 :''*"'"'. ~~-bd iiiii`iiiiii ii:iiiiiii;i -::----:---~_iii ii-i:ii ..?-:i:i:.:::::::::: ....... :i-i!--iiiiii iii: :::: ii--i.?::iI-i~I~-I:lli?i.l --::_--? -:: :ii:ii:_:::::::-::-:::: i ~~-~~i~~~ _ii-i -:-. iii-i:i:i:_i::: ii-:-:--:.-: -iiii:--::i/iiiiiiiiii: -?--l::iiiiiiiiii-:iiiii:li:ii--i:i--ii :iiiiiili-i-iii-: __-ii i_~iiiiiiiiii -i-i-i:l i--i i:i:iliiiii:i:i~i~i:i-i.i:i-isiii:,-l :-:-:i:i'ii-iiiii-i ii--:iiiiiiiiiiiiiii-iii: -:-ii:::.i:i'i-i ::::::: : ::-:-::?::;:?:: ii-i:-:-li: '~::-il:' i-i:i :-:-:-:_:_:::: ::-::_::::: i-i -i-:-:i-i:i?ii?-l :?----?--?-: ::ii~iiiii: ?ii:ii-i:iii:i::. ??i:; g?i.~:ii:ii:;ii--ilil:-i-l;:il:i-?--i:-;_iilii iiiiiiii:i::::i.i:ii:iiiiiiiii ~~:ici~-i:-iii ?iii-i -ii::-?iiiiiiii:-i:~:. ?:-i~-i:i-ii:i :-:l~-~.-_::;i-i-:-:;I:??;i~---_i-i:ii .-~':'::: ':::-:-' ... ::: :;:; i"'?":l : ':: -:-' :: II)iii : :::iil: iii-_--_---::-. -:-:,-:. i__: ~iii~ iiii-i. ...:: i,:iii:iiiiiiiiiii-iiii iii?iii-iliil::--:iii::ii:iiiiii:ii-ii:-:-i-i:ii~ :: ,,_i~-;~::ii~~:al-ii:ii--:li:il:-:i .-: -.. ::: i_-i-i.iiiiii-ii-ii:::i::-:-_:_-:-_:_-:: "'''iiii-,:i:::::_-:i.ii::?ii:i::::::gli i-___::-: -:? ::::.: --::-~ii:i:-:-:li -:::-i_-iiiii -_-i-i~iii0iiiii9 Bb~~l*i~-~ i-::-:-.: ::: :::::::::::: ::,,,,c:::~:~ . -::__::-?i:::i ..... --: -. :-:?::::-::::_::: _:-:::1:::--:-:~-:ir: ::-::?:~::--:: -i:--::::::-;:--::-:-1:::::::I -:::: ::. _~L-:i-::i:_,:,,:::_:::::-:: : _:-i~::::::-: ::-:::_--:-:-:;-:::j:::-: :::::l::-;::::l:i:: i:-i-?::ji:::::::::~:: :::::-:-:::::~ :.i:-:_-;:..---:-i~:::ji:::::h: :::::_:::::-:-~_::::,,ie:j,,__~:::, -::::_:::::::: -::i::;:i:: -:::: ::::-:::: ::i:iii:i-i::;:i:i_::-:~-i~:---:::-:-~--:--::--::~:~;li-:-:::-:::: :::_ --l~i~:~ ::::_:~::--;:: :~i~~~~~~-i~~~~~~~~~_:?P~-:.-;:e~:~ ~ i-_::li~l :i..-----~:iiii-,ii~ii:--: : :i:;:--~i:: : :-:; :::: :I:'::::-:'-::::: :':i:::ji?':--:-:2::: -::-iiii;:i i-iii i:::::::-:-: .... ~:::::j:; :i'il:-;--?: _ii-iiiiii-:::: ii:iii~;liii---iiii:i :~::i:ii:::ii-idi: i::: .:..-. :ii-:.::_-:_: . .iii-ii -?-i-i-~-i-_-:i?:::::::-::_::-:: :::?:::::::i::::::-::-:::i-::'::j:::: i:~ii:ilriiiiiii i;iiii-l-:-:::::-::~:i::_:i: ::?-::::::::-:: iii~~-i-:~i-si -::--:i:i-i:i _ii -I:iii-ii-iii--i ::'::-:-::::::: ~_::~(I_~ ?:::-:::::-:?::::: ?:::-::-:::i--::_:_:--__iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ::::i-l-ii~i-i-i:i:l-i:i::::::::::::::::: :.. iiii:::-::-.::::::::-?:i-::':--::lii-i~iii ~'-'?'''''-'' iiii--iiiliii~:ii::`::i-i:i-::-::i:i: :i:_ -:ici i-iiP:i:i'i'i:i'iiii-i -::::::::::::-:::::i:::_:::il?:: ::::::--i:i::~ii-iiaciii-i-i~i:i:-i:iii:_:i: ; ? - -::-:i:::::::i:: _::::::a:; :~:~-i~:~: ~Ri -:::

I

--:--i-i:-.. :::ill-;i -" I-?:--ii-ii--I i:::i -i:i-i jijiii~ :-i i:ii -ii:i .:: ::i-lll -:?::il -i:i:: .:.i --?:--:iiiii-----i:iiiiiiiiii:i-: :-:::iiiiiiiiiiiii :::: :::::: :::i-iiii --i:ii -i::il -:-: iiii i ii:-l iii:: -::' -i-ii-i-i:e:::::iis:iil.?~i?:-::l ? :: I-:, :. i ---? ii-: :.:: -I--:-_ :-i'i;-~-~_i~i :::.: .::::::?iiii:-: ::--:::':?i-iiiiiiiiii:-i:i,?:i:ii?i~i: ::: -:-:? --::-;:::-:-: :::::iiiii:' :-__ :-:: -_~i-:ai-~::--::i-i~;:_::-si-'ai;_:i:ic::i~ i;??:F :.:.. ii:i-i::li?iii -~i:i*_-i-i?i-::i i -_::ii:ii-ii:i--iii :--~ _--j_:,u--:---i-::iiil-:::-~i-_~?-:5~_:--~--~-~ :,~i-i-:ai-i i: i:--:--~l ~-i:iiiii_~,_, ~:ii ~i~iii--~i-:-~iii ::-:iii~~~iii ::-i:i:-iij:----;--::: ::i::::::::::? i:::-:?:-:-:::-?::::: j::--::::: :::::::::::::'-`: :::: :::: ''~i~:i-ii:-iii'~i-:::-:-:--::-:::.: ::,::::?::::::-:::

???:::?:::? :::: ::j:.?:::;::j::::::i::::: ?:.:j:

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

39

Television

VI. - Threequestions summarize forKant (see theCanonoftheFirst interest "What can I know? calls "the what he ofourreason": Critique) What ought I to do? What may I hope for?"A formulawhich,as arenotunaware,is derived frommedieval exegesis, youyourself specificallyfromAgostinode Dacie. Luthercitesit in orderto criticizeit. Here'sthetaskI am setting you: replytothisinyourownturn,orfinda it wayofputting differently. - The phrase "those who understand me" should, for those ears concernedby it, take on anotherring,fromthe very factthat your questions are echoing there,a tone so different, that the extent to which my discourse doesn't reply to them may become clear. And even if I were the only one on which theyhave such an effect,even then this effectwould stillbe an objective one, since I am the one whom they make into an object, by being what is dropped out of this discourse, to the point of understanding that it excludes such questions. All of this gives me the gain (forme, a quite secondarygain: "it is true") of understandingwhat racks my brain every time I am in the midstof thisdiscourse: why it gathersa crowd, which in my eyes is out of all proportionto it. For the crowd, the benefitis one of no longer hearing them. There's enough here in your Kantian flotillato temptme

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

OCTOBER

40

to embark, in order that my discourse expose itselfto the test of another structure. - Well,whatcan I know? - My discourse doesn't allow the question of what one is to know, since it begins by presupposing this as the sub"I already able knowit,". . . ject of the unconscious. Obviously I am not unaware of the shock that Newton delivered to the discourses of his time, and I know that Kant and his cogitatoryfollowfromthat. He almost pushes thingsto the limit,a limitthatis a precursorof analysis,when he uses it to deal with Swedenborg. However, in giving Newton a try, he fallsback into the old rutsof philosophy,seeing Newton as only another exemplum of philosophy's stalemate. But had Kant startedwithNewton'scommentaryon the Book ofDaniel we're still not certain that he would have found the source of the unconscious there. It was a matterofhaving the rightstuff. Well, after all, I'll spill my gut about the analytic discourse's response to the incongruityofthe question: what can I know? Reply: ... because "a-priori" nothing in any case that doesn't have the structureof is thelanguage, ... language; whence it followsthat the distance I can go within this limit is a matterof logic. This is expressed throughthe factthatscientificdiscourse was able to bring about the moon landing, where thoughtbecomes witness to a performanceof the real, and with mathematics using no apparatus otherthan a formof language. It's thisthatNewton'scontemporariescouldn'tswallow. They asked how each mass knew the distance ofthe others.To which Newton replied, "God, he knows it"- and does what's necessary. But note that once political discourse entersthe picture, you have the advent of the real, thatis, the moon landing, and

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Television

41

withoutthe philosopher(forthe newspaper makes everyman a philosopher)caringabout it, exceptperhaps in some vague way. What's at stake now is what we can escape with the help what in language is not a number of the real-of-the-structure: a but to sign decipher [dichiffrer]. [chiffre], My reply,then, only repeats Kant, except fortwo points: the factsof the unconscious have been discovered since then, and even beforethat,a logic had been developed throughmathematics, instigated- it would almost seem - by "the return"of these facts. It happens, in fact,despite theirwell-knowntitles, no critique in his worksdevelops a judgment of classical logic. . . . butnotthelogic He therebymerelyreveals himselfas the playthingof his un- ofclasses. conscious, which does not think and thereforecan neither judge nor calculate in the work that it blindlyproduces. The subject of the unconscious, on the contrary,gears into the body. Must I repeat that it is only in relationto a discourse thatsuch a subject can be trulylocated, namely in relaconcretizesit ... and how There'sno discourse tion to somethingwhose artificiality thatis not much so! make-believe. What can be said with all that as its premise, with the premise of knowledge ex-sisting- according to us - in the unconscious (but one such thatonly a discourse can articulateit), what real can be said, ifits realness has to come to us through thisdiscourse?That is how your question gets translatedin my context,which is to say that it seems crazy. That, nonetheless, is how we must have the courage to put it ifwe want to suggesthow, in followingthe institutedexperiment,therecould arise some propositions- stillto be demonstrated- able to sustain it. Let's go. Can one say, forexample, that, if Man [L'homme]wants Woman [La femme],21he cannot reach her without finding 21. Lafemmen'existe pas, says Lacan. Earlier translationschose to retain the French article and to render his formula, "The Woman does not exist." But since Lacan does not comment specificallyon this article, there was no need to keep in English such a non-English way of expressing a category.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

42

OCTOBER

himselfrun aground on the fieldof perversion?That is what is precipitatedas a formulathroughthe experimentinstitutedby psychoanalyticdiscourse. If it's verified,can it be taught to The matheme everyone,that is to say, is it scientific,since it's on the basis of this postulate that science developed? I say thatit is and all the more so since, like Renan's hope for "the future of science," it is of no consequence because Woman [Lafemme]doesn't ex-sist.But the factthatshe doesn't T-4 fwoman ex-sist doesn't stop me from making her the object of one's desire. Quite the opposite, whence the consequences. In returnforwhich Man [L'homme], in foolinghimself,encounters a woman, with whom everythinghappens: namely thatusual misfiring,ofwhichthe successfulsexual act consists. Its protagonists are capable of the most loftydeeds, as the theaterteaches us. The noble, the tragic, the comic, the farcical(to be plotted on a Gaussian curve), in brief,thefullrange ofwhat is produced in the scene throughwhich it is staged- the scene that severs love relations fromevery social bond --the full range, then,is realized- producingthe fantasiesthroughwhichspeaking beings subsist in what theycall - who knows why?- "life." For their only notion of "life"comes by way of the animal world, where theirknowledge is pointless. As the poetic dramatists realized, the famous you-endis our clearest evidence that theirlife, me-baby [tu-6moigne] their'sas speaking beings, is not a dream, nothingbesides their "You are .. . " you-logizing [tu-ent]of these animals: Baby-I'd-kill-for-you [tu-d-i-toi-mrme];22iftherewas ever a time to use lalangue- always amenable to my mind to be my ene-me [m'estamied'etre

mie(enne) ].

For afterall friendship,or ratherAristotle'sOtXia (Aristotle,whom I esteem no less forpartingwithhim), is reallythe point where this spectacle of love shiftsinto the conjugation of The whole paragraph involves puns related to the destructivenature oflove as 22. narcissisticidentification,and expressed in the homonymyin French of tu [you] and tue[kill], generatingthe followingvariations: tues moi[you are me]; tuer[to kill]; i tu eti toi [we say tuto each other]. At the end of the paragraph the mie(enne)should be heard as mi-haine.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

43

Television

the verb to love,including all that it implies in the economic that is, the law of the dwelling. term husbandry, As we know, man is he who dwells and, if he knows not where, he dwells on it out of habit nonetheless. The tOos, as Aristotlesays, has no more in common with ethics than the conjugal tie has, despite the homonymythat he notes, unable though he is to sever the two. but With no idea of the pivotal object in all this (not O70os name a how could without the you esobject petit (to it) MOos), tablish the science of it? True, you will stillface the problem of calibratingthisobwith the matheme that Science--Physics, the sole science ject that ex-sistsas yet-has found in the use of number and demonstration.But how could a betterfitbe found forit than this object I've mentioned,ifit be the veryproductof thismatheme whose site is related to the structure,as long as the latterbe to the mute the language pawned [1'en-gage] language [1'en-gage], by the unconscious? To be convincing about that, do we have to go back to what's already set out in the Meno, namely that the particular has access to truth? It's by coordinatingthe paths traced by a discourse, that (although it may proceed merelyfromthe one to the one - that is, fromthe particular) somethingnew can be conceived, and is able to be transmittedas incontestablyby thisdiscourse as is the numerical matheme. This requires only that somewhere the sexual relation cease not being written,that contingencybe established(so to speak), so as to make headway on thatwhich will laterbe completed by demonstratingsuch a relationto be impossible, that is by institutingit in the real. The possibilityof that's befalling us can be anticipated, throughrecourseto the axiomatic: a logic of the contingentfor which we are prepared by that which the matheme- or the mathematician as determined by it- senses as necessary: to allow oneself a free-fallfromany recourse to evidence.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Love

44

OCTOBER

We'll go on, then, startingofffromthe Other, the radical Other, evoked by the nonrelationembodied by sex--for anyone who can perceive that One occurs, perhaps, only through the experience of the (a)sexed. For us the Other is as entitledas the One to generate a subject out of an axiom. Hence, here is what the experiment suggests: first,thatwomen cannot escape the kind of negation thatAristotlediscards forthe reason thatit would apply to the As if by universal; namely, they are the not-all, TrdivrES.. from its universal Aristotle didn't the negation, protecting simplyrender it futile:the dictusde omnietnulloguarantees no ex-sistence,as he himselfdemonstrates,when attributingthis ex-sistenceto the particular,but without- in the strongsense of the term- accounting forit, that is to say, giving a fullaccount: the unconscious. It followsthat a woman- since we cannot speak of more ax tx than one--a woman only encountersMan [L'homme]in psychosis. Let's state the axiom, not thatMan [L'homme]doesn't exsist, which is the case for Woman [La femme],but that a woman forbidsHim forherself,not because He would be the Other, but because "thereis no Other of the Other," as I put it. Hence the universal of what women desire is sheer madness: all women are mad, theysay. That's preciselywhy they are not-all, that is to say not-at-all-mad-about-the-whole accommodatingrather:to the point where there [folles-du-tout]; is no limitto the concessions made by any woman fora man: of her body, her soul, her possessions. Powerless withrespectto her fantasieswhich are less easy forher to control. Rather, she is a partyto the perversionwhich is, I maintain, Man's [L'homme].Which leads her into the familiarmas(Ka) querade that is not just the lie of which some ingrates,themselvesclingingto therole ofMan [L'homme], accuse her. Rather, she prepares herselfon-the-off-chance, so that her inner fanof Man will find its hour of truth.That's not extasy [L'homme]

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Television

45

cessive, since truthis already woman insofaras it's not-all,unable, in any case, to be wholly-spoken. But that is why truthis more oftenthan not standoffish, demanding of love sexual pretenses that it can't fulfill, misfiring--sureas clockwork. Let's leave that as shaky as it is. But you can't apply M. Fenouillard's celebrated axiom to woman: once you've gone too far,there'sstillthe limit- thismustbe keptin mind.23 Thus it follows that in love it is not the meaning that counts, but rather the sign, as in everythingelse. In fact, thereinlies the whole catastrophe. And you can't say, in translationthrough analytic discourse, love slips away as it does elsewhere. However, until it is shown that it is via this thingthat is by its very nature senseless that the real enters the world of "Thereis no sexual man - namely the various paths, science and politicsincluded, relation" thatMan [L'homme],even Man-the-moon-lander,is broughtto an impasse- untilthen,there'sstillsome room formanoeuver. Because there one must assume that the real forms a whole, whichwould firsthave to be proved, since one can never assume a subject except fora reasonable being. Hypotheses non Jingomeans that only discourses ex-sist. - WhatmustI do? --I can only take up that question as anyone else would: by posing it to myself.And the replyis simple. It is what I am doing, derivingfrommy practicethe ethicof theWell-Spoken, which I've already stressed. Take a leaf out of thisbook ifyou thinkit could do well in other kinds of discourses. Lacan is referringto Lafamille Fenouillard,a series of cartoon-stylebooks from 23. the 1870s which, to the immense enjoyment of the very victims of its wit, held French middle-class familylife up to ridicule.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

OCTOBER

46

Although I doubt it. Because an ethic is relativeto a discourse. Let's not keep going over this. The Kantian idea that a maxim be put to the test of the universalityof its application is only the grimace by which the Ask "whatto do?" real manages to save its skin, by being approached only from only ofsomeone one side. whosedesire isfading It means merely thumbing your nose in reply to the nonrelationto the Other, when you take it literallyand go no further. In a word, it's a bachelor's ethic, that ethic embodied in our own time by Montherlant. May my friend Claude Levi-Strauss give structureto Montherlant'sexample in his speech of admission to theAcademy,24since fortunately,to comply honorably with his post, the academician need only titillatethe truth. It appears that thanks to your kindness that's my position, too. - Yourdig'sa goodone.But ifyou've notdeniedyourself thisexer- it'sbecause cise- and it is, indeed,thatofan academician you'retitillatedbyit, too.And I'll proveit toyou, sinceyou'llreplyto thethird question. As to "what may I hope for?"I'm turningthis question back on you, whichis to say, thistimeI understandit as coming fromyou. What I make of it formyself,I've already told you. How could it concern me withoutits telling me what to hope for? Do you conceive of hope as withoutan object? You, then, like everyoneelse whom I would address with Levi-Strauss succeeded to Montherlant's chair in the French Academy after 24. Montherlant's suicide; acceptance speeches are at the same time eulogies of the predecessors. Lacan refersto Montherlant's novel, Les cilibataires.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

47

Television

this formalyou, it's to you that I reply,hope forwhateveryou want. I just want you to know that more than once I've seen hope - what theycall brightnew tomorrows- drive people I've valued as much as I value you to kill themselves,period. And why not? Suicide is the only act that can succeed withoutmisfiring.If no one knows anythingabout it, that'sbecause it stems fromthe will not to know. Montherlantagain, to whom, withoutClaude, I wouldn't have given a thought. So that Kant's question may have meaning, I'm going to transformit into: fromwheredo you hope? You'd thenwant to know what analyticdiscourse can promiseyou,since forme it's already all sewn up. Psychoanalysiswould allow you, of course, the hope ofrefiningand clarifyingthe unconscious of which you're the subject. But everyoneknows thatI don't encourage anyone into it, anyone whose desire is not resolute. Furthermore--and I am sorry to referto some ill-bred you's- I thinkthe analytic discourse should be withheldfrom the rabble: surelythat is what's behind Freud's so-called criterion of culture. Ethical criteriaare unfortunatelyno more reliable. They, in any case, may be judged by otherdiscourses, and if I dare to pronounce that analysis should be withheld fromthe rabble, it's because it rendersthem dumb - certainly an improvement,but withouthope, to go back to your term. Anyway, the analytic discourse excludes the you who's not already in transference,since it exposes thisrelationto the subject supposed to know- which is a symptomaticmanifestation of the unconscious. For this I'd require as well the demonstrationof a giftof the same kind as is used to screenone's entryintomathematics, ifsuch a giftexisted; it'sa fact,however,thatsince no matheme otherthan those I've formulatedseems to have been produced by this discourse, there'sstill no testingforthe gift.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Do you wantto know nothing of thefate the unconscious prepares you?

48

OCTOBER

No chance for it to ex-sistexcept throughgood luck, by which I mean that hope won't change anything,which makes it futile,namely, by not allowing that to happen.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

49

Television

VII. Now let'sseeyou,please,titillate thetruthwhichBoileauvercan be clearlystated."Your sifiesas follows.:"Whatis well conceived etcetera. style, -

--I'll reply to you tit-for-tat.Ten years is enough for everythingI writeto become clear to everyone;I saw thathap- For he whoplays withthecrystalof pen with my thesis even though my style hadn't yet become language, . . . crystalline.So that is a factof experience. Nonetheless I won't put you offuntil leap year in July. I invert it to read: what is well-spoken, one conceives clearly--clearly means that it makes its way. There is somethingeven discouragingin thispromiseof success to a rigorous ethics, in its market success, at least. This brings home to us at what cost neurosis sustains itabout which Freud remindsus thatit's not evil, but good, self, that engenders guilt. You can't get your bearings here withoutat least suspect. . there's ing what castrationmeans. And this clarifiesthe gossip about alwaysa it that Boileau did nothingto suppress, "clearly"so as to fool ganderto bitehis 'gender" us, to encourage belief.25 Afterthe publication of Boileau's misogynisticsatire against women, an anec25. dote circulated about his presumed impotence caused by his having been bitten on the genitals by eithera gander or a turkey,when he was a child (making the theoretician of French classical poetry into a negative Leda). The effortsof Dr. Gendron, from Montpellier's facultyof medicine, were deployed in vain.

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

OCTOBER

50

clothedin its proverbialyellow-ochre: The slander [mddit] "There's no degree of differencebetween the medi-ochre[midiocre]and the worst."26This I findhard to attributeto the author of the verse that plays so wittilywith this word. All that is easy, but to hear me restoringit in my flatfootedway to what is a betterfitwith what transpires:a joke that nobody noticed. Surely we know that the joke is a calculated slip, one which takes the trickfromthe unconscious? You can findthat in Freud on jokes. And ifthe unconscious does not think,nor calculate, etc., it makes it all the more thinkable. You will catch it by surprise, in rehearing, if you can, what I was modulating forfun in my example of what can be known. Better, still--relyingless on the good luck of lalangue than bidding it up into language . It even needed a littlepush for me to see it, and that's where the site of interpretationappears, in all its precision. If, when confrontedwiththe glove turnedinside-out,you assume that the hand knew what it was doing, are you not throwingthe gauntlet back to someone tolerable to La Fontaine and Racine? The interpretationmust be prompt in order to meet the termsof the interloan [entrepret] - between that which perdures throughpure dross, and the hand that draws only fromDad to worse [De ce qui perdure depertepurea' ce qui neparieque du pereau pire].

The verse reads, "Dans l'artdangereux 26. de rimeret d'dcrire,/ II n'estpointde degredu au pire." [In the dangerous art of writingand rhyming/There'sno degree of midiocre differencebetween the mediocre and the worst.]

This content downloaded on Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:40:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions