An English translation follows:
>YOU COULD SEND THIS FRENCH TEXT JUST ONLY TO THE ONE WHO NEEDS IT. WE DO
>NOT KNOW FRENCH....
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"Lacan, le 'liberateur' de la psychanalyse" (from:
>> Dits et Ecrits 1954-1988 tome IV ed. Daniel Defert et Francois Ewald
>> Editions Gallimard, pp204-205) without accents via e-mail (the original
>> version is to be found in an Italian periodical, "Corriere della sera,"
>> vol. 106, no. 212, 11 Sept. 1981, p.1; it was an interview with
>> J. Nobecourt):
>>
>> --On a l'habitude de dire que Lacan a ete le protagoniste d'une
>> "revolution de la psychanalyse." Pensez-vous que cette definition de
>> "revolutionnaire" soit exacte et acceptable?
>>
>> --Je crois que Lacan aurait refuse ce terme de "revolutionnaire" et
>> l'idee meme d'une "revolution en psychanalyse." Il voulait simplement
>> etre "psychanalyste." Ce qui supposait a ses yeux une rupture violente
>> avec tout ce qui tendait a faire dependre la psychanalyse de la
>> psychiatrie ou a en faire un chapitre un peu sophistique de la
>> psychologie. Il voulait soustraire la psychanalyse a la proximite, qu'il
>> considerait comme dangereuse, de la medecine et des institutions
>> medicales. Il cherchait en elle non pas un processus de normalisation
>> des comportements, mais une theorie du sujet. C'est pourquoi, malgre une
>> apparence de discours extremement speculatif, sa pensee n'est pas
>> etrangere a tous les efforts qui ont ete faits pour remettre en question
>> les pratiques de la medecine mentale.
>>
>> --Si Lacan, comme vous le dites, n'a pas ete un "revolutionnaire," il
>> est, toutefois, certain que ses oeuvres ont eu une tres grande influence
>> sur la culture des dernieres decennies. Qu'est-ce qui a change apres
>> Lacan, egalement dans la facon de "faire" de la culture?
>>
>> --Qu'est-ce qui a change? Si je remonte aux annees cinquante, a l'epoque
>> ou l'etudiant que j'etais lisait les oeuvres de Levi-Strauss et les
>> premiers textes de Lacan, il me semble que la vouveaute etait la
>> suivante: nous decouvrions que la philosophie et les sciences humaines
>> vivaient sur une conception tres traditionelle du sujet humain, et qu'il
>> ne suffisait pas de dire, tantot avec les uns, que le sujet etait
>> radicalement libre et, tantot avec lees autres, qu'il etait determine par
>> des conditions sociales. Nous decouvrions qu'il fallait chercher a
>> libere tout ce qui se cache derriere l'emploi apparemment simple du
>> pronom "je." Le sujet: une chose complexe, fragile, dont il est
>> difficile de parler, et sans laquelle nous ne pouvons pas parler.
>>
>> --Lacan eut beaucoup d'adversaires. Il fut accuse d'hermetisme et de
>> "terrorisme intellectuel." Que pensez-vous de ces accusations?
>>
>> --Je pense que l'hermetisme de Lacan est du au fait qu'il voulait que la
>> lecture de ses textes ne soit pas simplement une "prise de conscience" de
>> ses idees. Il voulait que le lecteur se decouvre lui-meme, comme sujet
>> de desir, a travers cette lecture. Lacan voulait que l'obscurite de ses
>> "Ecrits" (My way of designating the title of L's work) fut la complexite
>> meme du sujet, et que le travail necessaire pour le comprendre fut un
>> travail a realiser sur soi-meme. Quant au "terrorisme," je ferai
>> simplement remarquer une chose: Lacan n'exercait aucun pouvoir
>> institutionnel. Ceux qui l'ecoutaient voulaient precisement l'ecouter.
>> Il ne terrorisait que ceux qui avaient peur. L'influence que l'on exerce
>> ne peut jamais etre un pouvoir que l'on impose.
>>
Here goes the translation from Corriere della sera (Evening
Courier from Milan I believe):
C: People are in the habit of saying that Lacan was the
promoter of a "revolution in psychiatry". Do you think that
this designation as a "revolutionary" is accurate and
acceptable?
F: I believe that Lacan would have rejected the term
"revolutionary" as well as the very idea of a "revolution in
psychiatry". He wanted simply to be a "psychoanalyst". In
his view that presupposed a violent break with all that
tended to make psychoanalysis dependent on psychiatry or to
make of it a slightly sophistical chapter in psychology. He
wanted to remove psychiatry from any proximity, which he
considered dangerous, to medicine and medical institutions.
He sought in it [psychoanalysis] not a process for
normalizing behaviors, but a theory of the subject. That is
why, in spite of an appearance of extremely speculative
discourse, his thought is not unfamiliar with all those
efforts that have been made to place in question the
practices of mental medicine.
C: If Lacan, as you say, was not a "revolutionary", it is
none the less sure that his works have had a very great
influence on culture in these last decades. What has
changed after Lacan, particularly in the manner of "making"
culture?
F: What has changed? If I think back to the fifties, to the
time when as a student I read the works of Levi-Straus and
the first texts of Lacan, it seems to me that the novelty
was this: we were discovering that philosophy and the human
sciences were living with a very traditional conception of
the human subject, and that it did not suffice to say with
the one side, that the subject was radically free, nor with
the other that it was determined by social conditions. We
were discovering that it was necessary to seek to liberate
all that was hidden behind the apparently simply use of the
pronoun "I". The subject: a thing complex and fragile, of
which it is difficult to speak, and without which we cannot
speak .
C: Lacan had many adversaries. He was accused of hermeticism
and "intellectual terrorism". What do you think of these
accusations?
F; I think that the hermeticism of Lacan results from the
fact that he wanted the reading of his texts to be not just
a simple "awakening of consciousness" about ideas. He
wanted the reader to discover himself, as a subject of
desire, by means of this reading. Lacan wanted the
obscurity of his "Writings" to be the very complexity of the
subject, and the work necessary for understanding to be work
to be accomplished on oneself. As for the "terrorism", I
would simply note one thing: Lacan did not exercise any
institutional power. Those who listened to him wanted
precisely to here him. He only terrorized those who were
afraid. The influence that one wields can never be a power
that one imposes
JLN
jlnich1@xxxxxxxxxxx
University of Kentucky
------------------
>YOU COULD SEND THIS FRENCH TEXT JUST ONLY TO THE ONE WHO NEEDS IT. WE DO
>NOT KNOW FRENCH....
>CETO FROM,,,,,
"Lacan, le 'liberateur' de la psychanalyse" (from:
>> Dits et Ecrits 1954-1988 tome IV ed. Daniel Defert et Francois Ewald
>> Editions Gallimard, pp204-205) without accents via e-mail (the original
>> version is to be found in an Italian periodical, "Corriere della sera,"
>> vol. 106, no. 212, 11 Sept. 1981, p.1; it was an interview with
>> J. Nobecourt):
>>
>> --On a l'habitude de dire que Lacan a ete le protagoniste d'une
>> "revolution de la psychanalyse." Pensez-vous que cette definition de
>> "revolutionnaire" soit exacte et acceptable?
>>
>> --Je crois que Lacan aurait refuse ce terme de "revolutionnaire" et
>> l'idee meme d'une "revolution en psychanalyse." Il voulait simplement
>> etre "psychanalyste." Ce qui supposait a ses yeux une rupture violente
>> avec tout ce qui tendait a faire dependre la psychanalyse de la
>> psychiatrie ou a en faire un chapitre un peu sophistique de la
>> psychologie. Il voulait soustraire la psychanalyse a la proximite, qu'il
>> considerait comme dangereuse, de la medecine et des institutions
>> medicales. Il cherchait en elle non pas un processus de normalisation
>> des comportements, mais une theorie du sujet. C'est pourquoi, malgre une
>> apparence de discours extremement speculatif, sa pensee n'est pas
>> etrangere a tous les efforts qui ont ete faits pour remettre en question
>> les pratiques de la medecine mentale.
>>
>> --Si Lacan, comme vous le dites, n'a pas ete un "revolutionnaire," il
>> est, toutefois, certain que ses oeuvres ont eu une tres grande influence
>> sur la culture des dernieres decennies. Qu'est-ce qui a change apres
>> Lacan, egalement dans la facon de "faire" de la culture?
>>
>> --Qu'est-ce qui a change? Si je remonte aux annees cinquante, a l'epoque
>> ou l'etudiant que j'etais lisait les oeuvres de Levi-Strauss et les
>> premiers textes de Lacan, il me semble que la vouveaute etait la
>> suivante: nous decouvrions que la philosophie et les sciences humaines
>> vivaient sur une conception tres traditionelle du sujet humain, et qu'il
>> ne suffisait pas de dire, tantot avec les uns, que le sujet etait
>> radicalement libre et, tantot avec lees autres, qu'il etait determine par
>> des conditions sociales. Nous decouvrions qu'il fallait chercher a
>> libere tout ce qui se cache derriere l'emploi apparemment simple du
>> pronom "je." Le sujet: une chose complexe, fragile, dont il est
>> difficile de parler, et sans laquelle nous ne pouvons pas parler.
>>
>> --Lacan eut beaucoup d'adversaires. Il fut accuse d'hermetisme et de
>> "terrorisme intellectuel." Que pensez-vous de ces accusations?
>>
>> --Je pense que l'hermetisme de Lacan est du au fait qu'il voulait que la
>> lecture de ses textes ne soit pas simplement une "prise de conscience" de
>> ses idees. Il voulait que le lecteur se decouvre lui-meme, comme sujet
>> de desir, a travers cette lecture. Lacan voulait que l'obscurite de ses
>> "Ecrits" (My way of designating the title of L's work) fut la complexite
>> meme du sujet, et que le travail necessaire pour le comprendre fut un
>> travail a realiser sur soi-meme. Quant au "terrorisme," je ferai
>> simplement remarquer une chose: Lacan n'exercait aucun pouvoir
>> institutionnel. Ceux qui l'ecoutaient voulaient precisement l'ecouter.
>> Il ne terrorisait que ceux qui avaient peur. L'influence que l'on exerce
>> ne peut jamais etre un pouvoir que l'on impose.
>>
Here goes the translation from Corriere della sera (Evening
Courier from Milan I believe):
C: People are in the habit of saying that Lacan was the
promoter of a "revolution in psychiatry". Do you think that
this designation as a "revolutionary" is accurate and
acceptable?
F: I believe that Lacan would have rejected the term
"revolutionary" as well as the very idea of a "revolution in
psychiatry". He wanted simply to be a "psychoanalyst". In
his view that presupposed a violent break with all that
tended to make psychoanalysis dependent on psychiatry or to
make of it a slightly sophistical chapter in psychology. He
wanted to remove psychiatry from any proximity, which he
considered dangerous, to medicine and medical institutions.
He sought in it [psychoanalysis] not a process for
normalizing behaviors, but a theory of the subject. That is
why, in spite of an appearance of extremely speculative
discourse, his thought is not unfamiliar with all those
efforts that have been made to place in question the
practices of mental medicine.
C: If Lacan, as you say, was not a "revolutionary", it is
none the less sure that his works have had a very great
influence on culture in these last decades. What has
changed after Lacan, particularly in the manner of "making"
culture?
F: What has changed? If I think back to the fifties, to the
time when as a student I read the works of Levi-Straus and
the first texts of Lacan, it seems to me that the novelty
was this: we were discovering that philosophy and the human
sciences were living with a very traditional conception of
the human subject, and that it did not suffice to say with
the one side, that the subject was radically free, nor with
the other that it was determined by social conditions. We
were discovering that it was necessary to seek to liberate
all that was hidden behind the apparently simply use of the
pronoun "I". The subject: a thing complex and fragile, of
which it is difficult to speak, and without which we cannot
speak .
C: Lacan had many adversaries. He was accused of hermeticism
and "intellectual terrorism". What do you think of these
accusations?
F; I think that the hermeticism of Lacan results from the
fact that he wanted the reading of his texts to be not just
a simple "awakening of consciousness" about ideas. He
wanted the reader to discover himself, as a subject of
desire, by means of this reading. Lacan wanted the
obscurity of his "Writings" to be the very complexity of the
subject, and the work necessary for understanding to be work
to be accomplished on oneself. As for the "terrorism", I
would simply note one thing: Lacan did not exercise any
institutional power. Those who listened to him wanted
precisely to here him. He only terrorized those who were
afraid. The influence that one wields can never be a power
that one imposes
JLN
jlnich1@xxxxxxxxxxx
University of Kentucky
------------------