Many thanks to JLN...
CETO
On Mon, 11 Mar 1996, jln wrote:
> An English translation follows:
>
>
>
> >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
>
>
>
------------------
CETO
On Mon, 11 Mar 1996, jln wrote:
> An English translation follows:
>
>
>
> >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
>
>
>
------------------