Zonas húmedas

K A N T I A N TALES

You know that last time I picked up my discussion with you by connecting it to my lecture to the Catholics.

Don't imagine that that was an easy way out. I didn't merely serve up again what I had to say in Brussels; I didn't tell them half of what I told you.

What I laid out last time concerning the death of God the Father will lead us to another question today, one that will show you Freud situating himself directly at the center of our true experience. For he doesn't attempt to evade the issue by making generalizations about the religious function in man. He is concerned with the way in which it manifests itself to us, that is to say, in the commandment which is expressed in our civilization in the form of the love of one's neighbor.

1

Freud confronts this commandment directly. And if you take the time to read Civilization and Its Discontents, you will see that that is where he begins, where he remains throughout, and where he ends up. He talks of nothing but that. What he has to say on the subject should under normal circum- stances make our ears ring and set our teeth on edge. But that doesn't hap- pen. It's a funny thing, but once a text has been in print for a certain period of time, it allows the transitory vertigo that is the vital source of its meaning to evaporate.

So I will try to reanimate the meaning of Freud's lines today. And since that will lead me toward some pretty potent notions, all I can do is ask lan- guage, what Freud would call logos, to lend me a measured tone.

God, then, is dead. Since he is dead, he always has been. I explained to

1 _{It should be borne in mind throughout the following discussion that "le mal"}

in French includes the ideas both of "evil and of "suffering." 179

you Freud's theory on the topic, namely, the myth expressed in Totem and

Taboo. It is precisely because God is dead, has always been dead, that it was

possible to transmit a message via all those beliefs which made him appear to be still alive, resurrected from the emptiness left by his death in those non- contradictory gods whom Freud indicates proliferated above all in Egypt.

The message in question is that of a single God who is both the Lord of the universe and the dispenser of the light that warms life and spreads the brightness of consciousness. His attributes are those of a thought which reg- ulates the order of the real. It is Akhenaton's God, the God of the secret message that the Jewish people bears by reason of the fact that, by assassi- nating Moses, it reenacted the archaic murder of the father. That, according to Freud, is the God to whom the sentiment, of which only a few are capable, is addressed, namely, amor intellectualis Dei.

Freud also knows that, although that love is articulated now and then in the thought of such exceptional men as the famous polisher of lenses who lived in Holland, it is nevertheless not of such great importance; it didn't prevent the construction in the same period of Versailles, a building whose style proves that the Colossus of Daniel with the feet of clay was still standing upright, as is still the case, although it had collapsed a hundred times.

No doubt a science has been erected on the fragile belief I was discussing, namely, the one that is expressed in the following terms, which always reappear at the horizon of our aims: "The real is rational, the rational is real."

It's a strange thing that if the science in question has made use of the belief, it has nevertheless remained subservient, remained in the service of the colos- sus I just referred to, the one that has collapsed a hundred times and is still there. The fervent love that a solitary individual like Spinoza or Freud may feel for the God of the message has nothing to do with the God of the believ- ers. Nobody doubts that, and especially the believers themselves, who, whether Jews or Christians, have never failed to cause Spinoza trouble.

But it is odd to see that for some time now, since it became known that God was dead, the believers involved practice ambiguity. By referring to the dialectical God, they are seeking an alibi for the crisis of confidence in their faith. It is a paradoxical fact, which hadn't occurred before in history, that the torch of Akhenaton functions nowadays as an alibi for the disciples of Ammon.

And I don't say this to slander the historical role played by the God of the believers, the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. That the message of Akhenaton's God was preserved in the tradition of the latter made it worth- while for Moses the Egyptian to be confused with the Mithanite, with the Moses whose Thing, speaking from the burning bush, affirmed himself to be a special God - not the only God, note, but a special God, compared to whom

Love of one's neighbor 181 all the others don't count. I don't want to emphasize more than necessary the line I am pursuing today on this point; it's not, strictly speaking, that it is forbidden to honor other gods, but you musn't do it in the presence of the God of Israel - the distinction is no doubt important for historians.

We who are trying to articulate Freud's thought and experience so as to give them their due weight and importance, we will articulate it in the follow- ing form: if this Symptom-God, this Totem-God or taboo, is worthy of our pondering the claim to turn him into a myth, it is because he was the vehicle of the God of truth. It is by means of the former that the truth about God could come to Ught, namely, that God was really killed by men, and that once the thing was reenacted, the primitive murder was redeemed. Truth found its way via him who the Scriptures no doubt call the Word, but also the Son of Man, thereby admitting the human nature of the Father.

Freud does not overlook the No/Name-of-the-Father. On the contrary, he speaks about it very well in Moses and Monotheism - in a contradictory way clearly, if you fail to take Totem and Taboo for what it is, namely, a myth; and he says that in human history the recognition of the function of the Father is a sublimation that is essential to the opening up of a spirituality that represents something new, a step forward in the apprehension of reality as such.

Freud also doesn't overlook - far from it - the real father. It is desirable according to Freud that in the course of the adventure of the subject, there is, if not the Father as God, then at least the Father as good father. I will read you some time the passage in which Freud speaks almost tenderly of the exquisiteness of that virile identification which flows from the love for the father and from his role in the normalization of desire. But that result only occurs in a favorable form as long as everything is in order with the No/ Name-of-the-Father, that is to say, with the God who doesn't exist. The resulting situation for this good father is a remarkably difficult one; to a certain extent he is an insecure figure.

We know this only too well in practice. And it is also articulated in the Oedipus myth - although the latter also shows as well that it is preferable for the subject himself to be unaware of these reasons. But he now knows them, and the fact of knowing them is precisely that which has certain consequences in our time.

These consequences are self-evident. They can be seen in common speech and, indeed, in the speech of the analyst. If we want to complete the task we have given ourselves this year, it is only fitting that we articulate them.

Let me note in passing that as the first person to demystify the function of the Father, Freud himself couldn't be a thoroughly good father. I don't want to dwell on it today; it is something we can sense through his biography, and

it could be the topic of a special chapter. Suffice it to characterize him as what he was, a bourgeois whose biographer and admirer, Jones, calls "uxo- rious." As we all know, he wasn't a model father.

There, too, where he was truly the father, the father of us all, the father of psychoanalysis, what did he do but hand it over to the women, and also perhaps to the master-fools? As far as the women are concerned, we should reserve judgment; they are beings who remain rich in promise, at least to the extent that they haven't yet lived up to them. As for the master-fools, that's another story altogether.

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To the extent that a sensitive subject such as ethics is not nowadays separable from what is called ideology, it seems to me appropriate to offer here some clarification of the political meaning of this turning point in ethics for which we, the inheritors of Freud, are responsible.

That is why I spoke of master-fools. This expression may seem imperti- nent, indeed not exempt from a certain excess. I would like to make clear here what in my view is involved.

There was a time, an already distant time right at the beginning of our Society, you will remember, when we spoke of intellectuals in connection with Plato's Meno. I would like to make a few condensed comments on the subject, but I believe they will prove to be illuminating.

It was noted then that, for a long time now, there have been left-wing intellectuals and right-wing intellectuals. I would Uke to give you formulas for them that, however categorical they may appear at first sight, might nevertheless help to illuminate the way.

"Fool" (sot) or, if you like, "simpleton" (demeuri) - quite a nice term for which I have a certain fondness - these words only express approximately a certain something for which the English language and its literature seem to me to offer a more helpful signifier - I will come back to this later. A tradi- tion that begins with Chaucer, but which reaches its full development in the theater of the Elizabethan period is, in effect, centered on the term "fool."2

The "fool" is an innocent, a simpleton, but truths issue from his mouth that are not simply tolerated but adopted, by virtue of the fact that this "fool" is sometimes clothed in the insignia of the jester. And in my view it is a similar happy shadow, a similar fundamental "foolery," that accounts for the importance of the left-wing intellectual.

2 _{In this and subsequent passages, the words "fool" and "knave" along with}

Love of one's neighbor 183 And I contrast this with the designation for that which the same tradition furnishes a strictly contemporary term, a term that is used in conjunction with the former, namely, "knave" - if we have the time, I will show you the texts, which are numerous and unambiguous.

At a certain level of its usage "knave" may be translated into French as

valet, but "knave" goes further. He's not a cynic with the element of heroism

implied by that attitude. He is, to be precise, what Stendhal called an "unmitigated scoundrel." That is to say, no more than your Mr. Everyman, but your Mr. Everyman with greater strength of character.

Everyone knows that a certain way of presenting himself, which consti- tutes part of the ideology of the right-wing intellectual, is precisely to play the role of what he is in fact, namely, a "knave." In other words, he doesn't retreat from the consequences of what is called realism; that is, when required, he admits he's a crook.

This is only of interest if one considers things from the point of view of their result. After all, a crook is certainly worth a fool, at least for the enter- tainment he gives, if the result of gathering crooks into a herd did not inevi- tably lead to a collective foolery. That is what makes the politics of right- wing ideology so depressing.

But what is not sufficiently noted is that by a curious chiasma, the "fool- ery" which constitutes the individual style of the left-wing intellectual gives rise to a collective "knavery."

What I am proposing here for you to reflect on has, I don't deny, the character of a confession. Those of you who know me are aware of my read- ing habits; you know which weeklies lie around on my desk. The thing I enjoy most, I must admit, is the spectacle of collective knavery exhibited in them - that innocent chicanery, not to say calm impudence, which allows them to express so many heroic truths without wanting to pay the price. It is thanks to this that what is affirmed concerning the horrors of Mammon on the first page leads, on the last, to purrs of tenderness for this same Mam- mon.

Freud was perhaps not a good father, but he was neither a crook nor an imbecile. That is why one can say about him two things which are discon- certing in their connection and their opposition. He was a humanitarian - who after checking his works will contest that? - and we must acknowledge it, however discredited the term might be by the crooks on the right. But, on the other hand, he wasn't a simpleton, so that one can say as well, and we have the texts to prove it, that he was no progressive.

I am sorry but it's a fact, Freud was in no way a progressive. And as far as this is concerned, there are even some extraordinarily scandalous things in his writings. From the pen of one of our guides, the little optimism mani-

fested for the perspectives opened by the masses is certainly apt to shock, but it is indispensable for us to remember that, if we want to know where we stand.

You will see in what follows the usefulness of such remarks, which may appear crude.

One of my friends and patients had a dream which bore the traces of some yearning or other stimulated in him by the formulations of this seminar, a dream in which someone cried out concerning me, "But why doesn't he tell the truth about truth?"

I quote this, since it is an impatience that I have heard expressed by a great many in other forms than dreams. The formula is true to a certain extent - I perhaps don't tell the truth about truth. But haven't you noticed that in wanting to tell it - something that is the chief preoccupation of those who are called metaphysicians - it often happens that not much truth is left? That's what is so risky about such a pretension. It is a pretension that so easily lands us at the level of a certain knavery. And isn't there also a certain "knavery," a metaphysical "knavery," when one of our modern treatises on metaphysics, under this guise of the truth about truth, lets a great many things by which truly ought not to be let by?

I am content to tell the truth of the first stage and to proceed step by step. When I say that Freud is a humanitarian but not a progressive, I say some- thing true. Let's try to follow the thread and take another true step.

We started out from the truth, which we must take to be a truth if we follow Freud's analysis, that we know God is dead.

However, the next step is that God himself doesn't know that. And one may suppose that he never will know it because he has always been dead. This formula nevertheless leads us to something that we have to resolve here, to something that remains on our hands from this adventure, something that changes the bases of the ethical problem, namely, that jouissance still remains forbidden as it was before, before we knew that God was dead.

That's what Freud says. And that's the truth - if not the truth about truth, then at least the truth about what Freud has to say.

As a result, if we continue to follow Freud in a text such as Civilization

and Its Discontents, we cannot avoid the formula that jouissance is evil. Freud

leads us by the hand to this point: it is suffering because it involves suffering for my neighbor.

This may shock you, upset certain habits, cause consternation among the happy souls. But it can't be helped; that's what Freud says. And he says it at the point of origin of our experience. He wrote Civilization and Its Discontents to tell us this. That's what was increasingly announced, promulgated, publi- cized, as analytical experience progressed. It has a name; it's what is known as beyond the pleasure principle. And it has effects that are by no means

Love of one's neighbor 185 metaphysical; they oscillate between a "certainly not" and a "perhaps."

Those who like fairy stories turn a deaf ear to talk of man's innate tenden- cies to "evil, aggression, destruction, and thus also to cruelty." And Freud's text goes on: "Man tries to satisfy his need for aggression at the expense of his neighbor, to exploit his work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to appropriate his goods, to humiliate him, to inflict suffering on him, to torture and kill him."3

If I hadn't told you the title of the work from which this passage comes, I could have pretended it was from Sade. Moreover, my upcoming lecture will, in effect, concern the Sadean account of the problem of morality.

For the time being, we will stick to Freud. Civilization and Its Discontents concerns the effort to rethink the problem of evil once one acknowledges that it is radically altered by the absence of God. This problem has always been avoided by the moralists in a way that is literally calculated to arouse our disgust once we have been alerted to the terms of the experience.

Whoever he might be, the traditional moralist always falls back into the rut of persuading us that pleasure is a good, that the path leading to good is blazed by pleasure. The trap is striking, for it has a paradoxical character