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(All parts in English)

During this contemplative vacation period, I felt the need to embark on an excursion into a particular area of the literary treasures of English and French: Quaerens, not quem devorem but rather quod doceam vobis—“what” to teach you and “how”—on a subject we are steering towards, under the heading, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. You sense that this subject must lead us to a problematic point, not only within Freud’s doctrine but also, in a sense, within what we might call our responsibility as analysts.

This subject, which may not yet have appeared on the horizon for you—there’s no reason it should, after all—since I’ve deliberately avoided the term up until now this year, is one that is highly problematic for theorists of analysis, as evidenced by the citations I will share with you. Yet, it is an essential concept in what Freud calls Sublimierung, sublimation.

Indeed, this represents the other side of Freud’s pioneering exploration of the roots of ethical sentiment, as it imposes itself in the form of prohibitions—something within us, manifesting as moral conscience.

This is the other side, often so poorly—indeed, one must say comically for any sensitive ear—represented in “the world”—by which I mean what lies outside our analytical field—under the guise of the philosophy of values.

For us, who stand with Freud as carriers of insight into the origins and real implications of ethical reflection, finding ourselves uniquely positioned to offer such a novel critique on this terrain, the question arises: are we in an equally advantageous position regarding the positive pathway of moral and spiritual elevation, which is often referred to as the “ladder of values”?

Certainly, the problem here appears much more fluid and delicate. And yet, we cannot claim disinterest in this matter in favor of the more immediate concerns of purely therapeutic action.

Somewhere in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud employs two correlative terms when discussing the effects of individual libidinal adventures:

• Fixierbarkeit, which we translate as fixation, serving as our explanatory register for what is otherwise inexplicable.
• And another term, Haftbarkeit, translated to the best of our ability as perseverance. However, this term carries a curious resonance in German, as it leans more toward notions of responsibility or commitment.

And it is precisely this—our collective history as analysts—that is at stake. We, too, are caught up in an adventure that has had its particular meaning, its contingencies, and stages. Freud’s trajectory was not pursued in a single stroke but was marked by milestones he left for us. We may find ourselves clinging to certain points in the evolution of his thought, without fully grasping the contingent nature of these developments, as is the case with all events in human history.

Let us attempt, then, using a method that, if not ours, is at least a familiar movement—taking a few steps back, say two, before advancing three—in the hope of gaining some ground.

Stepping back: Let us recall what analysis might initially seem to represent within the ethical order. At first glance—and indeed, certain siren songs might perpetuate this misunderstanding—it might appear to seek something one might term, in simple terms, “a natural morality.”

In some respects, psychoanalysis is indeed…

…through one entire aspect of its action and doctrine…

…something that simplifies a few problems or misunderstandings, which are external in origin, or rooted in ignorance or confusion.

It attempts to bring us back to a framework in which the idea might hold that something in the maturation of instincts leads to a normative balance with the world—a notion occasionally preached as gospel in the form of “genital relations,” a theme I’ve invoked here more than once with, as you know, more than reservation, if not outright skepticism.

Certainly, many things arise immediately to challenge this perspective, showing us that analysis does not, in any simple manner, engage us in what could be called—using a term I invoke not simply for its picturesque quality—the dimension of “pastoral care.” This dimension merits consideration.

The dimension of “pastoral care” has never been absent from civilization and consistently presents itself as a remedy to its discontents. If I call it this, it is because, through the ages, it has revealed itself openly in this form, under this theme.

And if in our times it may appear in a more masked, severe, or pedantic form—such as the infallibility, for example, of proletarian consciousness, which occupied us for so long, even though it has distanced itself somewhat over recent years—or in the form of that slightly mythical notion I just mentioned, of the hopes inspired, in a particular context, by the Freudian revolution, it does not mean that we are not still dealing with the same, and indeed—as you will see—a profoundly serious dimension.

Perhaps it is our task to rediscover it, to uncover its meaning, and to realize that, even in its archaic, historical form—what we call the pastoral dimension—it represents a certain return, a certain hope placed in a nature that we should not believe, after all, our ancestors conceived any more simply than it presents itself to us.

There is perhaps reason to revisit this exploration of this dimension, to consider the creations and inventions that the ingenium of our ancestors attempted along this path, to see whether they teach us something that perhaps also requires, for us, to be elucidated, explored.

Certainly, at first glance, as soon as we survey the insights of Freudian meditation, we see that something resists from the outset. This is the very point where I began this year’s discussion with you on the problem of the ethics of psychoanalysis. If there is anything that Freud allows us to grasp in terms of its resistant, paradoxical nature and practical aporia, it is not at all in the domain of difficulties related to the paradoxes of connection with an improved nature or natural improvement. Rather, it is something that immediately presents itself with a particular malevolence, a term whose meaning Freud elaborates increasingly throughout his work until he articulates it at its height in Civilization and Its Discontents, or when he examines the mechanisms of phenomena like melancholia.

It is the paradox in which moral conscience, Freud tells us, becomes more demanding as it refines itself, more cruel as we offend it less, and more exacting in the intimacy of our impulses and desires, compelling it—through our abstention from acts—to pursue us.

In short, it is the inextinguishable nature of this moral conscience, its paradoxical cruelty, that presents itself as a kind of parasite, nourished by the satisfactions granted to it. Ethics, in sum, persecutes the individual not so much proportionally to their demerits as to their misfortunes. This is the paradox of moral conscience in its spontaneous form, so to speak.

Here, I must change the term: “investigation of moral conscience functioning in its natural state” will no longer suffice. Let us take the other aspect, for which the use of the term “natural” obscures the meaning. Let us call it the “exploration through analysis,” the “critique through analysis,” of what we might term “wild ethics”—ethics as we find it uncultivated, functioning independently, especially among those with whom we engage, insofar as we progress on the plane of pathos [πάθος], of pathology.

It is precisely here that psychoanalysis sheds light, and ultimately, in its final sense, it leads us invariably to what we might call, at the depths of humanity, this “self-hatred.” This is captured in ancient comedy, from the New Comedy of Greece to Roman adaptations, from Menander to Terence, in works like The Self-Tormentor. While I do not specifically recommend reading this minor comedy—for after its evocative title, its text might disappoint you—you will encounter there, as elsewhere, what presents itself primarily as concrete satire, as a character trait, as ridicule pinned to the individual.

Yet do not forget that behind this ridicule, behind the seemingly light function of comedy, there lies, through the very play of the signifier, something that transcends its apparent contingency. Through its title, The Self-Tormentor, the articulation of the signifier alone unveils a depth that, through nonsensical mediation, reveals what Freud shows us in the workings of nonsense itself.

What emerges is a foundation, a something that outlines itself beyond the exercise of the unconscious. This is where Freudian exploration invites and incites us to recognize the point at which the Trieb (drive) is unmasked—not the instinct, but something beyond, as the Trieb approaches the domain of das Ding (the Thing), toward which I direct your focus this year. This is the framework in which our problems are posed.

Freud explored and discovered the Triebe within a comprehensive experience rooted in trust in the play of signifiers, their substitutions—something that ensures we cannot confuse the domain of the Triebe with any reclassification, however novel, of human connections to the natural world.

The Triebe, which we sometimes like to translate as closely as possible to the ambiguity of the term, must be understood as the very point that motivates this “drift”—or as I prefer to translate it, “drive,” which itself in English translates the German Trieb. This “drift” underpins the entire mechanism, the entire action of the pleasure principle, guiding us toward that mythical point that has been more or less successfully articulated under the term “object relation.” However, we must reexamine and tighten the following:

• The meaning of the concept, to critique it and address the confusions introduced by the use of these terms.
• The confusions that may have arisen due to ambiguities far more significant than any linguistic equivocation.
• The meaningful ambiguities surrounding the notion of the object, particularly the “object relation” within analysis.

In this field, where we approach what Freud said most profoundly about the nature of the Triebe, we must address how he conceptualized them as offering the subject satisfaction in more than one way. Specifically, he leaves open this door, this field, this path, this career of sublimation—a concept that has, until now, remained almost a reserved domain in analytical thought. Only the most daring have ventured into it, often expressing dissatisfaction and thirst left by Freud’s formulation.

We will refer here to several texts drawn from Freud’s works: from Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality to the Introductory Lectures, the Vorlesungen (translated as Introduction to Psychoanalysis), through Civilization and Its Discontents, and finally, to Moses and Monotheism. In these, Freud encourages us to reflect on sublimation or, more precisely, presents us with numerous challenges in defining its scope—challenges that merit our attention today.

Since the problem of sublimation is situated in the field of the Triebe, I would like first to pause on a text from the Vorlesungen, or Introduction to Psychoanalysis. The passage can be found on pages 357–358 of the German Gesammelte Werke, Volume XI:

“Thus,” Freud tells us, “we must consider that sexual instinctual impulses (Triebregungen) are, if I may say so, extraordinarily plastic. They can substitute for one another; one can take on the intensity of the others. When the satisfaction of one is denied by reality, the satisfaction of another may provide full compensation. They relate to one another like a network or communicating channels filled with a flow of liquid…”
(Introduction to Psychoanalysis, Payot 1965, PBP, p. 325.)

“[Sodann müssen wir in Betracht ziehen, daß gerade die sexuellen Triebregungen außerordentlich plastisch sind, wenn ich so sagen darf. Sie können die eine für die andere eintreten, eine kann die Intensität der anderen auf sich nehmen; wenn die Befriedigung der einen durch die Realität versagt ist, kann die Befriedigung einer anderen volle Entschädigung bieten. Sie verhalten sich zueinander wie ein Netz von kommunizierenden, mit Flüssigkeit gefüllten Kanälen…]”

Here, precisely, we see emerge the metaphor that undoubtedly inspired the surrealist work The Communicating Vessels.

“They behave in this way, despite having fallen under the domination or supremacy of genital primacy (Genitalprimat), which, not being so easily consolidated, cannot be considered as conveniently reducible to a single Vorstellung or representation.”
(…und dies trotz ihrer Unterwerfung unter den Genitalprimat, was gar nicht so bequem in einer Vorstellung zu vereinen ist.)

If there is one thing Freud warns us of in this passage—and there are certainly others—it is that even when the entire network (Netz) of the Triebe falls under genital primacy, the latter, even in its structure, should not be considered something conveniently conceived as a unified representation or a resolution of contradictions.

We know all too well that this does not eliminate the communicating and thus fluid, plastic character—Freud’s own term—of instinctual economy. In short, this “structure” that constitutes human libido, as I have taught you for many years, is characterized by its devotion to the sign and its propensity to slide within the play of signs. This is its universal and dominant primacy: to be subjugated by the structure of the world of signs, or in the terms used by Charles S. Peirce, the sign is “that which stands in place of something for someone.”

This is precisely how Freud initially articulates the matter—and we must firmly retain this articulation. It becomes even more pronounced in the continuation of the passage, where Freud explicitly elaborates the possibilities of Verschiebbarkeit (displacement), the natural preparation for accepting surrogates. This idea is thoroughly developed to culminate, in this passage, in the elucidation of Partiallust (partial pleasure) within even genital libido.

In short, to begin addressing the problem of Sublimierung (sublimation), we must first articulate the plasticity of the instincts as such. Even though we may later conclude that for the individual—in their essential mechanism and for reasons that remain to be elucidated—not all sublimation is possible, the issue as it pertains to the individual, considering both internal dispositions and external actions, places us before certain limits. We encounter something that cannot be sublimated—a libidinal demand that insists upon a specific amount, a certain degree of direct satisfaction, without which severe damage or disturbances ensue.

It is from this connection between libido and this Netz (network), this Flüssigkeit (fluidity), this Verschiebbarkeit (displaceability) of signs as such that we begin. This is the ground to which we are always brought back whenever we read Freud with careful attention.

Where has this led us?

Let us articulate another essential and necessary point before moving forward. It is evident in Freudian doctrine that the relationship structuring the libido—with its paradoxical and archaic traits, its so-called pregenital character, and, fundamentally, its eternal polymorphism—represents the originality of Freud’s discovery. This discovery unfolds in the form of a microcosm of images linked to the instinctual modes of various stages: oral, anal, and genital. Contrary to the path along which one of his disciples, Jung (to name him), attempted to steer the Freudian group—around the bifurcation point of 1910—this microcosm has nothing to do with the macrocosm. It generates a world only in fantasy.

This distinction is particularly significant in a time when it is abundantly clear that, if this microcosm was once projected into cosmological fantasies, such projections are no longer tenable. Neither the phallus nor, so to speak, the anal ring resides under the starry vault. They have been definitively expelled and exiled, which is an essential point.

For a long time, these projections occupied even the scientific thought of humanity. There was, for a long time, a world axis, and thought entertained the notion of some deep connection between our images and the surrounding world. Freud’s investigations hold critical importance here: they bring an entire world back into us.

To grasp the significance of this, let me remind you that this “world” previously occupied theological thought. This theological vision preceded what could be called the key step in the liberation of modern humanity. Freud’s work relocates this world definitively to its rightful place—within our bodies, and nowhere else. For centuries, this theological thought referred to what it called the “prince of this world,” or Diabolus—the devil. Symbolism here merges with the diabolical.

The devil, with all the forms articulated so powerfully by theological preaching, can be seen in texts such as Luther’s Table Talks or his Sermons. These texts reveal how potent these images could be, even as they resonate with images that, to us, are now scientifically authenticated by our daily analytical experience.

It is precisely these familiar images that a prophet as incisive as Luther, who reshaped the core of Christian teaching, invokes when he speaks of human dereliction and abandonment in this world. His terminology, I must say, often expresses these themes far more analytically than any modern phenomenology, which tends to articulate such notions more tenderly in terms of maternal loss or abandonment. “What is this negligence that allows the milk to dry up?” Luther is far more direct. He says, literally:

“You are the waste that falls into the world from the devil’s anus.”

This is the digestive and excremental schema forged by a mode of thought that drives the human condition to its furthest consequence—our exile from any possible good in the world. This is where Luther’s thought leads us. And do not believe that these ideas had no impact on the thinking or ways of living in his time. They marked the essential turning point of a crisis that gave rise to the entire modern structure of humanity’s place in the world.

Freud, in his own way, affirms and seals this conclusion. He relocates these fallacious archetypes—so deceptive when applied to the world—to their proper place: within our bodies.

This remains highly significant, as our experience shows that we now encounter this “world” where it truly resides. But does this relocation make everything self-evident? Is it something that offers us a simple, rosy, pastoral optimism about the erogenous zones—the fundamental fixation points of our being?

And indeed, up to a certain degree, and until Freud’s thought is more fully explicated, these zones can be considered specific and generic. But are they something that, in themselves, open a pathway to liberation? Not at all; rather, they present us, quite literally, with the severest servitude. These erogenous zones are, in essence, limited to:

• Selected points,
• Points of aperture,
• A limited number of orifices on the body’s surface,
• Points from which Eros must draw its source.

To understand the essential and original insight Freud introduces here, we need only refer to the openings provided by poetic expression. Imagine, for instance, a poet like Walt Whitman, and consider the desire a man might feel for his own body: a dream of epidermal contact with the world, the hope of a world open, vibrant, and alive—a total and complete connection between the body and the world. Such an image represents the horizon of a certain lifestyle, which the poet illuminates, showing us a dimension and a path where we might glimpse a revelation of harmony:

• A harmony of an entirely different nature,
• One that would transform our relationship with the world,
• One that seems to herald the end of certain oppressive, overly general, overly present, and insinuating burdens—such as the perpetual, looming presence of some original curse.

Here, Freud already seems to mark, at the level of what we might call the source of the Triebe, a point of insertion, a limit, and an irreducible point. This is precisely what experience then confronts in the—here we encounter ambiguity again—irreducible nature of the residues of these archaic forms of the libido.

On one hand, we are told these archaic aspirations of the child are not amenable to Befriedigung (satisfaction). They represent, in some sense, the starting point, the unresolved core, never fully integrated under any genital primacy, nor reduced by any pure and simple Verschiebung (displacement) of the human being into a supposedly total androgynous fusion. The dreams of these primary, archaic forms of libido always remain. This is the first point that Freudian experience and discourse repeatedly articulate and emphasize.

On the other hand, Freud shows us that at the other end, at the level of the goal (Ziel), there appears to be an almost limitless openness to substitution. I deliberately use Ziel rather than Objekt here, though the word object inevitably appears whenever Freud addresses sublimation in his writings. This happens because, when it comes to qualifying the sublimated form of instinct, Freud always returns—whether consciously or unconsciously—to the notion of the object. I will soon read passages that highlight where the difficulty lies in this concept.

Of course, it is about the object. But what does “object” mean at this level? When Freud first articulates the concept of sublimation, at the beginning of his doctrine, within his first topography, and particularly in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, we are presented with the idea that sublimation is characterized by a shift in the objects where the libido finds its satisfaction. This satisfaction occurs:

• Not through the return of the repressed,
• Not indirectly,
• Not symptomatically,
• But in a manner that is directly satisfying.

Freud initially distinguishes, in a simple and broad manner (though not without opening the door to infinite perplexity), between objects. This distinction—given at the outset—is solely based on whether the objects are socially valued. Specifically:

• Objects that receive the group’s approval,
• Objects of public utility.

Thus, sublimation is defined as the possibility of redirecting libido towards socially and collectively valued objects. This leaves us with two clear ends of the chain:

1. On one hand, there is the possibility of satisfaction, albeit substitutive (Surrogat), mediated through the use of surrogates, as Freud’s text describes.
2. On the other hand, these objects must carry a collective social value.

Ultimately, we are caught in a kind of trap, where thought, naturally inclined toward simplicity, rushes to find an easy opposition and reconciliation. It is tempting to juxtapose the individual against the collective. This creates a facile opposition: the collective finds satisfaction where the individual must change its orientation, its weapons, or its strategies. Alternatively, satisfaction might seem, in such cases, to follow naturally and effortlessly as an individual matter. However, Freud has shown us from the beginning just how problematic the satisfaction of libido is. At the horizon of all Triebe activity lies the fundamental issue of plasticity, both its possibilities and its limits.

This formulation is far from one that Freud could adhere to.

Far from adhering to it, we can see that in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud connects sublimation, particularly in its most evident social effects, to what he calls Reaktionsbildung—reaction formation. At this stage, where the conceptual framework had yet to be fully developed (as it would be with his later topographies), Freud introduces the notion of reaction formation. This is to say that he illustrates how certain character traits or socially regulated behaviors are not developed as a mere extension or direct outcome of instinctual satisfaction. Instead, they necessitate the construction of a defense system against the antagonism of anal drives. Freud thus introduces a contradiction, an opposition, a fundamental antinomy in the construction of what could be called sublimation of an instinct, embedding the problem of contradiction and antinomy within its very formulation.

What emerges as a construct in opposition to the instinctual tendency cannot, in any sense or form, be reduced to direct satisfaction—something in which the drive itself would be satiated in a way that could simultaneously receive collective approval. The truth is that Freud’s problems concerning sublimation only fully emerge with his second topography. This development takes place in works such as On the Introduction of Narcissism (Zur Einführung des Narzissmus), translated by Jean Laplanche for the Société, a text easily accessible to everyone in Gesammelte Werke, Volume X, pages 161–162.

Here, Freud articulates the following:

“What now presents itself to us in the relationship between the formation of the ideal and sublimation is what we must now investigate. Sublimation is a process concerning object-libido.”

I draw your attention to the fact that the opposition between Ichlibido (ego-libido) and Objektlibido (object-libido) begins to take shape analytically here. This work is not merely an introduction to narcissism; it introduces Freud’s second topography, providing the conceptual complement necessary to illuminate the fundamentally conflicted nature of human satisfaction. Freud identifies this conflict as inherent and central to human experience. This is why it is essential to introduce, from the outset, the concept of das Ding (the Thing)—since, in following the path of pleasure, humanity must literally “go around it.”

The time it takes to recognize this and understand it corresponds to realizing something Freud articulates clearly, something I mentioned in our last session: it is the same message as Saint Paul’s! Namely:

• That what governs us on the path to pleasure is not any Sovereign Good (Souveränes Gut).
• That beyond a certain limit, we are in an entirely enigmatic position concerning what das Ding contains.
• That no ethical rule mediates between our pleasure and its real principle.

And behind Saint Paul lies the teaching of Christ. When Christ is questioned, shortly before the Last Passover, he is asked a question referencing one of the commandments from the Decalogue that I discussed last time. The question is framed in two versions: one from the Gospel of Matthew, and the other from Mark and Luke.

In the Gospel of Matthew, where the account is clearest, the question posed is:

“What good must we do to gain eternal life?”

Christ replies, in the Greek text:

“Why do you ask me about what is good? Who knows what is good? Only He, our Father who is beyond, knows what is good, and He has told you: do this and do that; go no further. Simply follow His commandments.”

Beyond this, Christ proclaims, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This phrase stands out—with good reason and striking relevance, as Freud never hesitated to examine whatever came before him—as the focal point of Civilization and Its Discontents. It is the ideal endpoint to which Freud’s own inquiry leads him.

But the crux lies in Christ’s response. And here I strongly encourage you, if you are capable, to perceive something that, outside the ears of the prepared, has remained inaccessible for far too long. I mean to say that, if there are ears that fail to hear, the Gospel is the perfect example.

Try reading the words of the one who is said never to have laughed. Indeed, this is striking. Read his words for what they are, and you will occasionally find yourself struck by humor surpassing all else—such as in the parable of the dishonest steward.

Naturally, anyone who has spent some time in churches is long accustomed to seeing this imagery cascade above their heads. But no one seems astonished that “the purest among the pure,” “the Son of Man,” essentially tells us that the best way to secure the salvation of one’s soul is to tamper with the funds entrusted to one’s care—since, after all, doing so may win you, if not merits, at least some recognition from the children of light.

There is an apparent contradiction here, at least on the level of a homogeneous, uniform, and flat morality. Yet perhaps this sort of insight—alongside others—can illuminate that formidable jest: “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” and then figure it out for yourselves. It is within this paradoxical style—occasionally indulging in evasions, ruptures, and nonsensical gaps—that we find ourselves, at certain points in these insidious dialogues, marveling at how skillfully the interlocutor slips from the traps laid for him.

To return to the matter at hand, this fundamental negation of the concept of “the Good” as such—an eternal object of philosophical inquiry into ethics and the philosophers’ moral grail—stands rejected at its core in the very notion of pleasure, in the pleasure principle itself, as a governing rule of Freud’s conception of the drives (Triebe).

As I mentioned earlier, this notion, which is discernible and corroborated in countless ways, is fully consistent with Freud’s central question—the one concerning the father. To grasp Freud’s position regarding the father, we must turn to where the thought of Luther takes shape. I referred to Luther earlier, when he was, of course, incited, even provoked, by Erasmus, who—after much resistance and prolonged hesitation—finally released his De libero arbitrio. In this work, Erasmus sought to remind Luther, drawing upon the full weight of Christian authority from the words of Christ to those of Saint Paul, Augustine, and the Church Fathers, that good works, righteous deeds, must still amount to something. In short, Erasmus argued that the tradition of the philosophers, the idea of a “Sovereign Good,” was not something to be entirely discarded.

Luther, until then quite reserved regarding Erasmus personally, and maintaining a certain irony toward him, published his De servo arbitrio (The Bondage of the Will). In this work, Luther emphasized humanity’s fundamentally flawed and evil relationship with the heart of its destiny—that Ding, that causa, which I referred to earlier as analogous to what Kant places on the horizon of his Practical Reason. However, unlike Kant’s concept, which functions as its counterpart, Luther’s notion could be termed—if I may invent a word with approximate Greek roots—a causa pathomenon, the cause of humanity’s most fundamental passion.

Elaborating on this, Luther writes:

“The eternal hatred of God against humankind—not only against its failings and the deeds of free will but a hatred that existed even before the world was created.”

You can see why I might recommend occasionally reading religious authors—the good ones, not those who write saccharine prose. Even those writers can sometimes be enlightening: Saint Francis de Sales on marriage, for instance, rivals Van de Velde’s Perfect Marriage. But in my opinion, Luther surpasses them all.

Surely, it does not escape you that this hatred, which existed even before the world’s creation—and which correlates strictly to the relationship between:

• A particular style, conception, and incidence of the law as such,
• And a particular conception of das Ding as the radical problem, and ultimately the problem of evil—

is precisely what Freud grapples with from the outset. His investigation into the father reveals the father as the tyrant of the primal horde—the figure against whom the primal crime was committed, thereby establishing the entire structure, essence, and foundation of the law.

To fail to recognize this cultural paternity—this structural inheritance—stemming from a particular turning point in thought at the beginning of the 16th century, whose waves extended visibly into the mid- and late 17th century, is to entirely misunderstand the nature of the problem Freud’s inquiry addresses.

I’ve just taken a twenty-five-minute digression, because all of this was to convey, before we had a chance to step back and recognize it, that Freud, with the Einführung (Introduction), shortly after 1914, introduced us to something that effectively obscures the problem again. In what way? By articulating certain things that are, of course, essential to articulate but that must be understood as inserted into this context—namely, the problem of the relationship to the object. This issue of the relationship to the object must be read Freudianly, as you see it emerge in fact, that is, as a narcissistic relationship, an imaginary relationship.

Here, at this level, the object is introduced to the extent that it is perpetually interchangeable with the love the subject has for their own image. Ichlibido and Objektlibido are introduced in Freud’s work precisely at this point of articulation—namely, in the Einführung. It revolves around the Ich-Ideal (ego-ideal) and the Ideal-Ich (ideal ego), the mirage of the self, and the formation of an ideal that autonomously takes its field, becoming preferable—or at least providing within the subject a form to which they will henceforth submit.

The problem of identification is thus tied to this psychological doubling, placing the subject in a state of dependence on this idealized, forced image of themselves. Freud later emphasized this repeatedly. It is within this relationship, this mirage relationship, that the notion of the object is introduced.

This object is therefore not the same as the object at the horizon of the drive’s tendency. There is a difference between the object structured by the narcissistic relationship and das Ding (the Thing). It is precisely within the field and trajectory of this difference that the problem of sublimation arises for us.

In a brief note in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud makes a sort of flash observation, consistent with the style of the essay. On page 48, he writes:

“The difference that strikes us between the love life of the alten (the Ancients, the pre-Christians) and our own lies in this: that the Ancients placed the emphasis on the tendency itself, while we, on the contrary, place it on its object.”

The Ancients celebrated the tendency with festivals and were willing, through the tendency, to honor even an object of lesser or common value. In contrast, we reduce the value of the tendency’s manifestation, demanding the support of the object by its prevailing characteristics.

When I call this an excessive excursion, I pose the question: What does this mean? Freud wrote at length about certain degradations of love life. These degradations—what are they predicated upon? Upon an ideal that is undeniable:

“I need only cite one example from these notes, in the spirit of the English author Galsworthy, whose worth is universally recognized today. A short story, The Apple-Tree, once greatly appealed to me. It illustrates how, in our modern civilized life, there is no longer room for simple, natural love—the pastoral echo between two human beings.”

Everything flows naturally and spontaneously from this point. How does Freud know that we emphasize the object while the Ancients emphasized the tendency? You might say there is no idealized exaltation in any ancient tragedy comparable to that in our classical tragedies. But Freud scarcely motivates this claim. I am not sure this argument stands without substantial critique. If we compare our tragedies, our ideal of love, to those of the Ancients, we must refer to historical works—a particular moment that must itself be situated. We will discuss this next time, as it is there that we will delve deeper.

This is indeed about a historical structuring and modification of Eros. To say that we invented courtly love, the exaltation of woman, or that a certain Christian style of love, which Freud discusses, marks a historical shift is significant. This is the terrain I intend to explore with you.

Nevertheless, I will show that, in the works of the Ancients—and curiously, more in the Latins than the Greeks—there are already certain elements, perhaps all the elements, characterizing this idealized cult of the object. This reference to the object shaped what we must call the sublimated elaboration of a particular relationship.

Freud’s hasty, possibly inverted claim here relates to a notion of degradation. When closely examined, this degradation pertains less to what we might call love life and more to a “lost string”—an oscillation or crisis concerning the object itself.

In seeking the tendency through the cultural loss of the object, it is possible that this kind of problem lies at the center of the mental crisis from which Freudianism emerged. This is the question we must address.

In other words, the nostalgia expressed in the idea that the Ancients were closer to the tendency may mean nothing more—like every dream of a golden age or El Dorado—than that we are compelled to reframe questions at the level of the tendency because we no longer know how to handle ourselves in relation to the object.

The object, in fact—inasmuch as it is inseparable from imaginary elaborations, and especially cultural ones—comes into view for us at the level of sublimation. This is not merely because the collective recognizes these objects as useful in a purely practical sense but because they provide a direction, a field of relief through which the collective can, in a sense, deceive itself regarding das Ding. It is through these objects that the collective can colonize the field of das Ding with its imaginary formations.

It is in this sense that collective sublimations, socially accepted sublimations, find their orientation and exercise their influence. But they are not purely and simply the result of the satisfaction society derives from the mirages offered by various creators—whether moralists, artists, or others, such as artisans or makers of dresses and hats—who generate a number of imaginary forms.

The mechanism of sublimation cannot be sought merely in the sanction that society provides through its contentment with these forms. It must be sought in the relationship to an imaginary function, particularly in connection with the symbolic framework of the fantasy (S◊a), the form that sustains the subject’s desire.

It is precisely because, socially and within historically specified forms, the elements of (a)—the imaginary components of the fantasy—come to occupy the place of, and cover over, das Ding, deceiving the subject at that very point, that we must focus our examination of sublimation here. For this reason, next time, I will speak to you about courtly love in the Middle Ages, specifically the Minnesang tradition.

This is also why I will bring you, this year, a kind of anniversary reflection. Just as last year I spoke to you about Hamlet, this year I will discuss Elizabethan theater to show you how, in this theater, we encounter the turning point of European—and simultaneously civilized—eroticism. It is at this moment that we witness what could be called a pivotal shift: the elimination and simultaneous elevation of the idealized object, which Freud mentions in his note.

This leaves us facing a renewed gap concerning das Ding—the das Ding of religion and mysticism—at a time when we could no longer place it under the guarantee of the Father.