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(All parts in English)

What is remarkable in the formulation that I am going to try to give you of the discourse of analysis, by identifying it through the various traces by which it manifests itself and is already at first glance related, namely the discourse of the Master,
is—let’s rather say—that the fact that the truth of the Master’s discourse is masked is what gives analysis its importance.

In the four places where the articulatory elements are situated, on which I base the consistency that can arise from the interrelation of these discourses, it is clear that the place I have designated as that of truth is distinguished
only by approaching what pertains to the functioning of what comes from articulation at this place.
This is not specific to it; the same can be said for all the others.

For example, since, of course, this localization, which until now consisted of designating these places as “the top right” or “the top left,” and so on, clearly cannot satisfy us.

It is a matter of a level of equivalence in functioning, for example, of something that would be written as follows:
what S1 is in the discourse of the Master, insofar as it can be said to be congruent or equivalent to what functions as S2
in the discourse that I have qualified, to fix ideas if I may say so, or at least to fix mental accommodation,
as the University discourse: S1(M) ≈ S2(U). This place will be said to function as a place of order, or, if you prefer, of command.

It is the place of truth…
insofar as it is—within my various little diagrams, so-called “on all fours”—underlying it
…that truly poses its problem and which, being able to occupy itself at the level of the discourse of the Master only with this barred S,
which, to tell the truth, at first glance, nothing necessitates,
because what, at a first stage, does not calmly pose itself as identical to itself?

We will say that this is the principle of discourse…
not mastered, but let us write it as “Master-ized”
…of discourse insofar as it constitutes the Master, it is to believe itself univocal.
Undoubtedly, this is precisely the step of psychoanalysis, to make us posit that the subject is not univocal.

The exemplary formula…
which—at the moment, two years ago—when I was trying to articulate The Psychoanalytic Act,
a path that remained at a standstill and, like others, was never resumed
…the striking formula, then, that I formulated of the alternative “either I do not think, or I am not,”
is indeed what, simply by being brought forth, stands out and resonates quite strikingly as soon as the discourse of the Master is at issue.

Yet, to justify it, it must be produced elsewhere, where alone it is evident.
It must itself be produced at the dominant place, and this within the discourse of the hysteric,
so that it is indeed certain that the subject is placed before this vel which is expressed as “either I do not think, or I am not.”

— There where I think, I do not recognize myself, I am not: this is the unconscious.

— There where I am, it is all too clear that I go astray.

In truth, presenting things this way does not allow us to see—or more precisely, shows—that if this has remained obscure for so long
at the level of the discourse of the Master, it is precisely because it occupies a place that, by its very structure,
masked this division of the subject.
Have I not told you, indeed, what it means to tell everything at the place of truth?

Truth, I tell you, can only be enunciated as a half-saying, and the model I have given you is in the enigma,
for that is precisely how it always presents itself to us.
Not, of course, in the state of a question:
the enigma is something that presses us to respond under the threat of mortal danger.
Truth is only a question—as has long been known—for administrators.
“What is truth?” We know by whom this was eminently pronounced, once and for all,
but that is something other than this form of half-saying to which truth is compelled,
something other than this division of the subject that takes advantage of it to mask itself.

For the division of the subject is something entirely different:

— If “where he is not, he thinks,”

— If “where he does not think, he is,”

…it is indeed that he is in both places, and even—I would say—that this formula of Spaltung is improper.

The subject participates in the real in this very respect that he is apparently impossible…
or, to put it better, if I had to use a figure, one that does not appear here by chance…
I would say of him what is said of the electron:
there where it presents itself to us, at the junction of wave theory and corpuscular theory,
and where we are forced to admit that it is indeed as the same that it passes through two distant slits,
and at the same time.
The order, then, of what we represent by the Spaltung of the subject is different from that which, like truth,
is only represented by being enunciated in a half-saying.

Here appears something important to highlight,
for in truth, each of our formulas…
that which situates a discourse has, of course, this very ambivalence—as we will take up the word in another sense—
whereby truth is only represented by a half-saying.

…each of these formulas takes on singularly opposing meanings.

Is it good, is it bad, this discourse that I intentionally pin to the University discourse?
Because, in a way, it is the University discourse that shows, that shows where it may falter,
it is also fundamentally the one that shows what ensures the discourse of science.

For identify within it S₂ as it indeed holds the dominant place in the discourse U, as we write it.
It is precisely because, as I have told you, it is in the place of order, of command, the place originally held by the Master,
that knowledge has come.
And if it happens that nothing else—at the level of its truth—exists, other than the Master-signifier [S₁] as such,
insofar as it operates to carry the order of the Master.

This is precisely what this pertains to, that after a time of hesitation, we might say, among the minds that pondered it,
after a time of hesitation of which we have evidence, for example, at the level of Gauss,
whose notebooks show us that the statements advanced a little later by a Riemann,
Gauss—who had approached them—had decided not to deliver them:
“One does not go further,” and why put this knowledge into circulation, even of pure logic,
if it seems that from it, much of a certain status of repose could be shaken?

It is clear that we are no longer at that point, and that this is due to progress itself,
to that pivot that I describe as a quarter-turn,
which has brought forth a knowledge [S₂] somewhat denatured,
from its original localization at the level of the slave [Disc. M],
to having become pure knowledge of the Master, and governed by his command [Disc. U].

→
Who, in truth, in our time, could even for a moment consider stopping this movement of articulation of the discourse of science
[as Gauss had done] in the name of anything that might result from it?
Already, things—my God—are here, they have shown where we are headed:
from molecular structures to atomic fission.

Who, for even a moment, could think that what, in the play of signs,
in the reversal of contents and the shifting of combinatorial places,
calls upon the theoretical attempt to put itself to the test of the real,
in the way that—by revealing the impossible—brings forth a new power,
could be stopped?

It is impossible not to obey the command that is there, in the place of what is the truth of science:
“Continue. Go forward. Keep knowing more and more.”

Very precisely from this and from the fact that this sign of the Master occupies this place,
any question of what this sign might veil…
the S₁ of the command “Continue to know,”
of what this sign, by occupying this place, contains of enigma…
of the fact that it is this sign that occupies this place,
any question about truth is, properly speaking, crushed.

Only, what is enigmatic is that in the field of those sciences that dare to call themselves “human sciences,”
we clearly see that the command “Continue to know” stirs up some disorder.
Because, as in all the other little squares or four-legged diagrams,
it is always the one who is here [Other] who works,
and to bring forth the truth, for that is the meaning of work.
If he did not work, the one who occupies this place, whoever he may be:

— in the discourse of the Master [Disc. M], it is the place of the slave,
— in the discourse of Science [Disc. U], it is that of the a-student,

…one could play with this word, perhaps it would refresh the question a little.

Earlier, we saw him compelled to “continue to know” on the level of physical science.
On the level of the human sciences, we see him as something for which a word might be needed,
I do not yet know if it is the right one, but for me, at first approach, by instinct, by sound: “astudé.”

If I introduce this word into vocabulary, I would have more luck than when I wanted to change the name of the mop.
“Astudé” has more reason to exist.
At the level of the human sciences, the student feels “astudé.”
He is “astudé” because, like any worker—refer to the other little frameworks—he has to produce something.
Something for which, in truth, my discourse occasionally elicits responses that relate to it.

It is rare, but from time to time, it pleases me.
When I arrived at the École Normale [rue d’Ulm],
it so happened that some young people started discoursing on the subject of science.
In truth, I had made it the subject of the first of my seminars in the year 1965.
“The subject of science”—it was pertinent, but clearly, it does not go smoothly.

They got their fingers rapped, and it was explained to them that “the subject of science” does not exist.
And at the critical point where they had believed they could make it emerge,
namely in the relation of 0 to 1 in Frege’s discourse,
they were shown that the progress of mathematical logic had made it possible to completely reduce,
not to suture, but to evaporate the subject of science.

Yet the discomfort of the “astudés” is not unrelated to the fact that,
after all, they are asked to constitute, with their own skin, the subject of science,
which—judging by the latest news—in the domain of “human sciences”
seems to present some difficulties.

And this is how, for a science so well established on one side
and so evidently conquering on the other…
conquering enough to qualify itself as “human,”
no doubt because it takes men as humus [Disc. H, U, M]…
well, things happen, things happen that, in sum, bring us back to our feet,
and make us grasp that at the level of truth,
the fact of substituting it with the pure and simple command, that of the Master…

“that of the Master”—do not believe that the Master is always there,
it is the command that remains…

the categorical imperative “Continue to know,”
there is no longer any need for anyone to be there, we are all embarked—
as Pascal says—into the discourse of science.

The fact remains that the half-saying is justified precisely by this:
that it appears that, on the subject of the “human sciences,” nothing holds up.

You would be quite wrong to believe…
because after all, we do not know in what little backward mind
this might arise—that my remarks would imply
…that this science should be slowed down, that, all things considered, returning to Gauss’s attitude
might offer some hope of salvation.

These sorts of imputations…
which, in truth, would be quite rightly qualified as reactionary
…must still be pointed out, because it is not unthinkable that in certain circles,
which, in truth, I do not think I am very inclined to frequent from where I am speaking,
one might infer such things from what I am currently discussing…

And what must also be well understood is that, in anything I articulate
with a certain aim of clarification,
there is not the slightest idea of progress in the sense that this term would imply a happy resolution.

What truth, when it emerges, has of the resolutive,
may at times be fortunate, and in other cases, disastrous.
There is no reason why truth should necessarily always be beneficial.
One must truly have the devil in their bones to imagine such a thing,
when everything demonstrates the contrary.

In short, it is certain that in the so-called position of the analyst,
that is, when it is the object (a) itself that finds itself…
in cases that are improbable, is there even an analyst who knows it?
…but one can theoretically posit that when it is the object (a) itself
that comes to occupy the place of command,
that it is precisely as identical to the object (a),
to what, for the subject, presents itself as the cause of the desire to know,
that it offers itself as the target of this senseless operation:
a psychoanalysis, insofar as it engages in the trace of the desire to know.

I told you from the outset that this desire to know does not come easily.
The “epistemological drive,” as they have invented to call it,
should be examined in terms of where it might emerge.
As I have pointed out, it is not the Master who would have invented it alone;
someone must have imposed it upon him.

Just as the psychoanalyst—my God—is not always self-evident.
And moreover, it is no longer he who instigates it,
he offers himself as the target for anyone bitten by this particularly problematic desire.
We will return to this.

In the meantime, let us take care to pinpoint exactly what is at stake
in the so-called structure of the discourse of the analyst
as you see it here:

He says to the subject:
“Go ahead, say— as they say—everything that crosses your mind,
however divided it may be, however manifestly it demonstrates
that either you do not think, or you are nothing at all,
it does not matter; whatever you produce will always be acceptable.”

Strange, strange for reasons that we will have to highlight,
but which we can already sketch out in this:
that you have been able to see that if there is a very strong link,
a fundamental relation, at the upper line of the structure—
to express it quickly—the one that connects the discourse of the Master to the slave [S₁→ S₂],

— by means of which—Hegel dixit—the slave, over time, will demonstrate his truth,
— by means of which also—Marx dixit—he will have spent all this time fomenting his surplus-jouissance.

Why does he owe this surplus-jouissance to the Master?
That, of course, is what is masked.
What is masked at the level of Marx
is that the Master—to whom this surplus-jouissance is due—
has renounced everything, starting with jouissance itself,
since he exposed himself to death and remains fixed in this position.

In the Hegelian articulation, this is clear.
Undoubtedly, he has deprived the slave of the disposition of his body,
but—that is nothing!—to him, he has left jouissance.

So if the Master, in all this, makes a small effort to keep everything running,
that is, gives the order, it is clear…
this, I believe I explained to you well in its time,
but I bring it up again because one can never repeat important things too much
…that it is in this way that jouissance has come back within the reach of the Master
to manifest its demand.

By simply fulfilling his function as Master, he loses something,
and that something lost is at least that by which something of jouissance
must be returned to him: precisely this surplus-jouissance.
If over time, through his relentless effort to castrate himself,
he had not accounted for this surplus-jouissance,
if he had not turned it into surplus-value,
in other words, if he had not founded capitalism,
Marx would have realized that surplus-value is surplus-jouissance.

But all this, of course, does not prevent capitalism from being founded,
and the function of surplus-value from being very pertinently designated
in its devastating consequences.
Nevertheless, to overcome it, one would perhaps need to know
at least the first step of its articulation.
Because it is not by nationalizing—at the level of
“socialism in one country”—the means of production
that one is finished with surplus-value, if one does not know what it is.

So then, this surplus-jouissance, this surplus-jouissance
also shows us that at the level of the discourse of the Master,
since it is nonetheless precisely there that it is situated,

— there is no relation between what, more or less, will become
the cause of desire [a] for a figure like the Master,
who, as usual, of course, understands nothing of it,

— there is no relation between that and what constitutes truth.

Because here, in the lower part, the lower level of the four-legged schema,
there is a barrier [◊].
And the fact that at the level of the discourse of the Master,
the barrier, the barrier that is quite immediately within reach of being named:
it is jouissance itself,
insofar as it is forbidden, as it is forbidden at its core.

One takes mere scraps of jouissance
[a ◊ S: formula of the fantasy].
[The “product” (a) cannot reach the forbidden jouissance (S),
and by brushing against the edge of the void (◊) through the phallic relay (a → S₁),
only takes “scraps of jouissance.”]

To go all the way, I have already told you how this is embodied,
no need to stir up deadly fantasies again.

What is interesting in this formula, as defining the discourse of the Master,
is to see that it is the only one to make impossible
that kind of articulation which we have pointed out elsewhere as the fantasy,
insofar as it is the relation of a with the division of the subject
[a ◊ S].

The discourse of the Master, in its fundamental departure,
excludes the fantasy.
This, in truth, is what makes it, at its core,
entirely blind.

We will see that it is the fact that elsewhere…
particularly in the analytic discourse—it is spread out on a horizontal line and in a perfectly balanced way…
that the fantasy can emerge, telling us a little more about what lies at the foundation of the discourse of the Master.

Be that as it may, to return to things at the level of the discourse of the analyst,
let us note that it is knowledge,
namely the entire articulation of the existing S₂, all that can be known,
that is placed—in my way of writing, not in the real—
in the position called truth.

That is to say that “what can know” is, in the discourse of the analyst,
asked to function in the register of truth.
What could that possibly mean?
We sense that this concerns us.

And to take things—there is a reason I made this detour—at the level of current affairs:
the poor tolerance, let’s say a certain headlong rush that knowledge has taken
in the form known as “science,” modern science,
might perhaps simply…
even if we do not always understand beyond the tip of our noses
…make us feel that certainly, if somewhere there is a chance
for this to take on meaning—“knowledge questioned in terms of truth”—
it must be—at least if we trust our little turning wheel—
it must be there [discourse A] that it finds its meaning.

You see—this, I say to you in passing—for example,
this is what justifies me…
just in passing, we will see where we are heading,
but in passing, just like that
…this is what justifies me, for example, in saying that,
since once, in a way, they finally… shut me up,
right at the moment I was about to speak about the Name-of-the-Father,
I will never speak of it again!

It seems that way, it seems teasing, unkind,
in a way.
Who knows?
There are even people, you know: science fanatics:

“Continue to know! How so, you must say what you know about the Name-of-the-Father!”

I will not say what I know about the Name-of-the-Father
precisely because I do not belong to the university discourse.
I am an ad-analyst [Laughter],
a rejected stone from the outset,
even if in my analyses I become the cornerstone,
the moment I stand up from my chair,
I have the right to go take a walk [Laughter].

Because it reverses: “the rejected stone that becomes the cornerstone,”
it can also go the other way around:
one might say that the cornerstone can go take a walk, no? [Laughter]

It is even perhaps this way that I will have a chance to see things change:
if the cornerstone were to leave,
the whole edifice would collapse!
There are those who would like that!
But let’s not joke. [Laughter]

But simply, I do not see why I would speak about the Name-of-the-Father,
since in any case, where it is placed is at the level
where knowledge functions as truth,
and that we are strictly speaking condemned to the fact that…
even on this point still unclear to us
concerning the relation between knowledge and truth
…it is only by a half-saying, let us acknowledge,
that we can enunciate anything at all.

I do not know if you fully grasp the weight of this.
It means that if we say something in one way,
in this order, in this field,
there will be another part that,
by the very act of being spoken,
becomes absolutely irreducible, completely obscure.

So that, in the end, there is a certain arbitrariness,
there is a choice to be made regarding what it is that we wish to illuminate.
Thus, if I do not speak of the Name-of-the-Father,
it will allow me to speak of something else.
It will not be unrelated to truth,
but unlike the subject, it will not be the same truth.

Well, this is just a parenthesis.

What we observe about what happens to knowledge
when placed in the position of truth—
I mean, in the discourse of the analyst—
I think you did not have to wait for me to say it now for it to become apparent.
You must still remember that what appears there,
it has a name: it is myth.

Because, we did not have to wait for the discourse of the Master
to have fully developed
to reveal its ultimate expression in the discourse of the capitalist,
with that curious copulation with science,
we did not wait for that,
this has always been seen,
in any case, it is the whole of what we see
when it comes to truth, at least to primordial truth.

It is the one that, nonetheless, concerns us a little…
although science has made us renounce it
by giving us only its imperative: “Continue to know,”
but within a certain field—
but curiously, in a field that has,
in relation to what concerns you, fellow man,
a certain discordance…
Yes, well, that is occupied by myth.

There you have it,
we have made it a branch of linguistics.
I mean that what is said most seriously about myth
comes from linguistics.

I can only recommend, of course,
in Structural Anthropology…
a collection of articles by my friend Claude Lévi-Strauss
…that you refer to Chapter 11, “The Structure of Myths”:
there you will evidently see stated the same thing
that I am telling you,
namely that truth can only be sustained by a half-saying.

The first serious examination of “these large units,”
as he calls them—because they are mythemes—
is evidently this,
which I do not impute to him,
I will read exactly what he writes:

“The impossibility of connecting groups of relations…

(He is referring to “bundles of relations,”
as he defines myths.)

…is overcome (or more precisely replaced) by the assertion
that two relations, contradictory to each other,
are identical,
inasmuch as each is, like the other—like the other!—
contradictory with itself.”

[Plon p. 239, or Pocket p. 248]

In short, that half-saying is the very internal law
of every form of enunciation of truth,
and that what embodies it best is myth.

One cannot, however, declare oneself completely satisfied
that we are still at this point.

In short!

Because myth,
the typical myth,
the central myth,
as you still know,
of psychoanalytic discourse,
is the Oedipus myth.

I believe you can all answer that question.

It is quite amusing, isn’t it? The effect that the use of the Oedipus myth has had among people who had been occupied with myths for quite some time—even before my dear friend Claude Lévi-Strauss, who brought exemplary clarity to the subject, took a keen interest in the function of myth.

In circles where one knows what a myth is,
even if one does not necessarily define it as I have just tried to situate it for you,
though it would be difficult to accept—even for the most obtuse operator—not to see that everything one can say about myth is this:
that truth reveals itself in an alternation of strictly opposed things,
which must be made to revolve around one another.

After all, whatever has been constructed since the world has been the world,
including everything you might wish to add,
even such superior, highly elaborated myths as Yin and Yang…
Well, one can talk a lot of nonsense around myth, you see,
because it is precisely the field of nonsense,
and nonsense, as I have always told you, is truth.
They are identical.
Truth allows one to say everything.
Everything is true, on the condition that you exclude the opposite.
Only, the fact that it is structured this way still plays a role.

So, the myth, the Oedipus myth as Freud makes it function—
I can tell you, for those who do not know—
the mythographers tend to laugh at it.
They find it completely out of place.
Why grant this myth such a privilege?
Well, the first serious study one can conduct on it
shows that it is actually much more complex.
And, as if by chance, Claude Lévi-Strauss,
who does not shy away from scrutiny,
in the same article, presents the complete Oedipus myth:
one can see that it is about something quite different
from merely determining whether one is going to sleep with one’s mother or not.

It is still curious, for example,
that shortly afterward, a mythographer
who is thoroughly well-qualified in the field,
from the right school, from the right tradition,
beginning with Boas and precisely converging toward Lévi-Strauss…
A certain Kroeber,
after having written a rather incendiary book on Totem and Taboo,
twenty years later ended up writing something…
Well, it bothered him,
it unsettled him to have spoken so ill of it,
especially since he saw that it was spreading,
that any student thought they could chime in,
and that, he could not tolerate.

So, he pointed out that, after all,
there must have been some reason for its existence,
that there was something there—
he could not say what—
but that the Oedipus myth was indeed an obstacle.
He did not elaborate further,
but after the criticism he had made of the book Totem and Taboo…

Totem and Taboo, about which,
one must still say that,
perhaps…
I don’t know, if you want me to do it this year…
we should study its composition,
which is one of the most convoluted things one can imagine!

It is not as if, just because I advocate a return to Freud,
I cannot say that Totem and Taboo is twisted.
It is, in fact, precisely why we must return to Freud:
to realize that if it is twisted in that way,
given that he was nonetheless a man who knew how to write and think,
then it must have had a reason for being.

I will not add, “Moses and Monotheism, let’s not even talk about it,”
because, on the contrary, we will talk about it.

All this to say that, after all,
I am putting things in order:
I was not going to start by laying out some kind of well-trodden path—
a path that, of course, I alone have carved,
since no one has helped me—
to ensure that one understands what The Formations of the Unconscious are,
or The Object Relation.

And now, one might think that I am simply performing acrobatics around Freud—
but that is not quite what this is about.

Yes, let us try, nonetheless,
to grasp something of what the Oedipus myth is,
the Oedipus myth in Freud.

I will not finish with it today,
and as you can see, I am not in a hurry.
I do not see why I should exhaust myself!

I speak with you like this, as it comes to me,
and we will see,
step by step,
where we can get to.

I will begin, like this, from… from the end,
to give you right away my aim,
because I see no reason not to lay my cards on the table.

This is not exactly how I had planned to talk to you about it,
but at least it will be clear.

I am not at all saying that Oedipus is useless,
nor that it has no connection to what we do.
It is useless to psychoanalysts—
that is true!
But since psychoanalysts are not necessarily psychoanalysts,
that does not prove anything.

More and more,
psychoanalysts are engaging with something that is indeed of utmost importance,
namely, the role of the mother.

And these matters—my God—
but I have already begun to address them.

The role of the mother,
it is the “infatuation” of the mother.

It is absolutely crucial,
because the “infatuation” of the mother
is not something one can simply endure,
as if it were indifferent.

It always causes damage.

Doesn’t it?

A great crocodile, like that—doesn’t it?—
in whose mouth you are lodged,
that is the mother, no?

One never knows what might seize her,
suddenly, just like that,
to snap her jaws shut.

That is the desire of the mother.

So, I tried to explain that what is reassuring
is that there is a bone—
as I put it in simple terms for you [Laughter]—
there was something reassuring—
I am improvising a little [Laughter]—
a sort of roll, solid, made of stone,
that is there, potentially, at the level of the jaws,
holding them open, blocking them:

This is what we call the phallus,
the roll that keeps you safe
if, all of a sudden,
they snap shut.

These are things I have laid out in their time, just like that, because it was a time when I was speaking to people who had to be handled with care: they were psychoanalysts! One had to tell them things in terms this big for them to understand.

Besides, not all of them understood. [Laughter]

So, at that level, I spoke of the paternal metaphor. I introduced… I have never spoken of the Oedipus complex except in that form.

That must have been at least somewhat suggestive. If I say it is the paternal metaphor, when in fact, after all, that is not how Freud presents things to us! Especially since he is quite insistent that this whole damned story of the murder of the father of the horde really happened—you know, that Darwinian buffoonery: the father of the horde, as if there had ever been the slightest trace of a father of the horde. We have seen orangutans [Laughter], but the father of the human horde—we have never seen the slightest trace of him!

In any case, Freud insists that it really happened. That, he holds onto! He wrote Totem and Taboo entirely to say this: that it necessarily took place and that this is where everything started, including all our troubles, even the trouble of being a psychoanalyst… It is striking!

In any case, someone ought to have gotten a little excited over this paternal metaphor, that is, done… what I have always strongly wished for—after all, when I indicate a little gap, a little path… that someone would step forward, make a trail for me when I begin to point out a small way forward, like that. If only someone had preceded me!

But whatever the case… whatever the case, it did not happen. So the question of Oedipus remains intact.

So I am going to make a few preliminary remarks, because, as you see, I… we really must hammer this home, because this story does not simply disappear.

There is something in analytic practice, which, after all, is what we are truly trained in and accustomed to—this story of manifest content and latent content, isn’t there?

That is the experience.

For example, for the analysand, the analysand sitting there, his knowledge is latent content: we are there to get him to know everything he does not know while knowing it. That is the unconscious.

Should I make this remark now, which, after all, might be useful, wouldn’t it, to some psychoanalysts?

That for the psychoanalyst, the latent content is on the other side [in S₁]:

For him, the latent content is the interpretation he will produce, insofar as it is not the knowledge we uncover in the subject, but what is added to it in order to give it meaning.

Let us set aside for now this manifest content and latent content, except to retain the terms.

What is a myth?

Do not all answer at once: “It is manifest content!”

If there is something that can be called manifest content, it is myth!

But that is not enough to define it—we defined it differently earlier.

However, it is clear that if a myth can be put onto index cards, as Claude Lévi-Strauss proposes as a method—
on cards that one will stack, and then we will see how it turns, as a combination of two myths that are related to each other somewhat like my little devices that turn a quarter turn.

And then, it yields results.

In any case, it is like my little devices: it is manifest, it is not latent—my little letters on the board.

So, what is it doing here?

Manifest content must be put to the test.

We will see, by putting it to the test, that it is not so manifest after all.

Let us recount it—let us proceed like this, I will go as I can—let us recount the… the historiole.

Because Freud does not treat the Oedipus complex as a myth at all.

When he refers to Sophocles,
it is Sophocles’ historiole minus—
you will see—
its tragic dimension.

That is to say, it is reduced to this:
that what Sophocles’ play reveals is this:
that one sleeps with one’s mother after having killed one’s father.

The murder of the father is the jouissance of the mother,
to be understood in both the objective and subjective senses:
one enjoys the mother, and the mother enjoys—these are linked.

That Oedipus has absolutely no knowledge
that he has killed his father,
nor that he makes his mother enjoy,
or that he enjoys her,
changes nothing in the question,
since precisely—
what a perfect example of the unconscious!

I believe I have long enough denounced
the ambiguity in the use of the term unconscious:

— as a noun, it is something that indeed has a support, does it not? The repressed representative of the representation.
— and then unconscious as an adjective, as in: “that poor Oedipus was unconscious.”

There is an equivocation here, to say the least.

But in any case,
if this does not bother us,
we should at least consider what these things mean.

So, there is this Oedipus myth, borrowed from Sophocles.

And then there is that completely absurd story I spoke of earlier:
the murder of the father of the primitive horde,
where it is quite curious that the result is exactly the opposite—

that is, they kill the old father, the old man who had them all to himself,
which is already a fable—
why would he have had them all to himself,
when there were other men around
who could also have had their little ideas?

Yet still, that is where we start.

The consequence…
and here, it is something entirely different from the Oedipus myth…
the consequence of killing the old man,
the old orangutan,
is that two things happen,
one of which I will put in parentheses,
because it is fabulous:

they discover they are brothers!

Well, if that gives us any ideas about what fraternity is [Laughter],
I give it to you like that, just as a passing thought,
because maybe, before we part this year,
we will have time to return to it.

After all, this drive we have to all be brothers
proves quite evidently that we are not.

Even with our biological brother,
nothing proves that we are his brother—
we may have a completely opposite set of chromosomes.

So this obsession with fraternity—
not to mention the rest,
liberty and equality [Laughter]—
is something quite fascinating,
and it would be worthwhile
to consider what it actually conceals.

I know of only one origin of fraternity—I am speaking of human fraternity, always the humus [H, U, M – us]—and that is segregation.

We are, of course, in an era where segregation—pooh!
There is no segregation anywhere anymore, it’s unheard of!

It’s unheard of—at least when you read the newspapers.

Simply put, society, as it is called…
well, I do not wish to call it human precisely,
I choose my terms carefully,
I pay attention to what I say, I am not a man of the left [Laughter]…
I observe that everything that exists is founded on segregation,
and in the first instance, fraternity.

No other form of fraternity is even conceivable,
has the slightest foundation,
as I have just told you,
not the slightest scientific foundation,
except that we are isolated together,
isolated from the rest,
by something whose function must be understood,
and why it is that way.

But that it is that way—
that is glaringly obvious,
and by persistently pretending that it is not true,
there must still be some disadvantages.

This is half-saying, what I am telling you!

I am not telling you why it is that way.

First of all, because if I were to say it,
I could not say why it is that way.

Here is an example.

In any case, they discover they are brothers.

One wonders by virtue of what segregation.

It must be said that, for a myth, this is rather weak.

And then, secondly,
they all decide, unanimously,
that they shall not touch the little mothers.

Because there is more than one, after all.

They could trade among themselves,
since the old father had them all—
they could sleep with their brother’s mother, precisely,
since they are only brothers through the father.

Yet never does anyone seem to have noticed this curious fact:
to what extent Totem and Taboo has absolutely nothing to do
with the common use of the Sophoclean reference.

The height of absurdity is Moses…
Why is it necessary that Moses must have been killed?

Freud explains it to us—the strongest part!

It is so that he may return in the prophets!

By way, no doubt, of repression,
through some sort of mnemonic transmission across chromosomes,
one must assume.

On this point, I must say,
the remark made by an imbecile like Jones—
that Freud does not seem to have read Darwin—
is correct.

Yet Freud had indeed read him,
since it is on Darwin that he relies
to pull off the trick of Totem and Taboo.

Still, it is quite certain that it is no coincidence
that Moses and Monotheism
is like the rest of everything Freud wrote:
it is absolutely fascinating!

One could say, if one is a free spirit,
that it makes no sense at all.

Well, we will come back to that.

What is certain is that, nevertheless,
what is at stake with the prophets
has nothing at all to do, this time, with jouissance.

I must tell you—
and I am pointing this out at the same time—
who knows, someone might do me a favor…

I must tell you that I have set out in search
of something that serves as a small linchpin
to what Freud sets forth,
namely, the work of one Sellin,
published in 1922: Mose und seine Bedeutung für die israelitisch-jüdische Religionsgeschichte.

This Sellin is not unknown—
I have managed to obtain his Die Zwölf Propheten.

He begins with Hosea.

A small one, a small one but a daring one—
so daring that, it is said,
it is with him that one finds traces
of what would have been the murder of Moses.

I must tell you that I did not wait
to read Sellin to have read Hosea,
but that I have never, in my life,
been able to procure this book.

Frankly, I am starting to become enraged,
and I am stirring all of Europe to get my hands on it.

It is not at the Bibliothèque nationale,
nor at the Alliance israélite universelle, etc.

In short, it is very difficult to find.

I still think I will manage to get hold of it—
but if someone here happens to have it in their pocket,
they could bring it to me at the end of the session,
and I would return it to them. [Laughter]

In any case, in Hosea,
there is one thing that is absolutely clear—
this text of Hosea is astonishing.

I do not know how many people here read the Bible.

I cannot tell you that I was raised with the Bible,
because I am of Catholic origin [Laughter]—
I regret it.

But in fact, I do not regret it,
in the sense that when I read it now—
well, now, meaning for quite a long time—
it has an incredible effect on me!

This familial delirium,
these adjurations of Yahweh to his people,
which contradict themselves from one line to the next,
it is enough to make one’s head spin.

There is one certain thing,
and that is that it is perfectly clear what this is about:

all relations with women are Znout,
as they say—
outside the law,

that is to say,
it is a Zayin, a Nun, and a Tav—
this is how it is written.

Here, I write it for you in very fine letters,
I do not write it in cursive:

It means prostitution.

Even when addressing Hosea,
it is only about that:

his entire people have definitively prostituted themselves,
and prostitution is nearly everything that surrounds them—
that is to say,
most probably a time, a context, let us say,
in which there was what the analytic discourse—
when we explore the discourse of the Master—
discovers:

that there is no sexual relation.

I have already stated this quite strongly.

One might well think
that our chosen people
found themselves immersed in a world
where things were different—
where there were sexual relations,

and it is probably this
that Yahweh calls prostitution.

In any case, it is quite clear that if it is the spirit of Moses that returns to us here, this is certainly not about a murder that led to access to jouissance. We must nonetheless see things as they are, for amid all this—since all of this is so fascinating—never has anyone seemed…

Well, perhaps it would have seemed too immediate, too foolish, to make this objection.

Moreover, it is not an objection: we are entirely within the subject.

What is truly remarkable is:

— First, that the prophets, ultimately, never speak of Moses. One of my best students pointed this out to me—mind you, she is Protestant! Which means she has known these verses longer than I have.

— But above all, they do not speak at all of this thing that, for Freud, seems to be the key: namely, that the God of Moses is the same God as that of Akhenaten—that is, a God who would be One.

You know, far from this being the case, Yahweh speaks constantly of other gods.

He simply says that one must not have relations with them,
but he does not say that they do not exist.

He says that one must not rush toward idols,
but after all, not even idols that represent him—
which was certainly the case with the Golden Calf.

They were waiting for a God, they made a Golden Calf—
it was entirely natural.

So here we see that there is a completely different relation,
one that is a relation to truth.

I have already told you that truth is the little sister of jouissance;
we will have to return to this.

What is certain is that what is completely elided
in the crude scheme: murder of the father → jouissance of the mother,
is the tragic mechanism—

that is to say, it is indeed through the murder of the father
that Oedipus gains free access to Jocasta,

but the reason she is given to him,
this is by popular acclamation…

Jocasta—who, as I have told you, knew a thing or two,
because women are not without their little sources of information.

There was a servant who had witnessed the entire affair.

It would still be curious if this servant,
whom we find again at the end—
and who had indeed returned to the palace—
had not told Jocasta:

“That’s the one who did in your husband.”

But in any case, that is not what is important.

What matters is that Oedipus was admitted near Jocasta
because he had triumphed in a trial of truth.

We will return to this riddle of the Sphinx.

And then, if Oedipus ends very badly…
we will see what “ends very badly” means,
and to what extent it truly qualifies as “a very bad ending.”

…it is because he absolutely wanted to know the truth.

Here we see that it is not entirely possible
to seriously approach this reference—the Freudian reference—
without introducing, between murder and jouissance,
this dimension of truth.

So, this is where I might leave you today.

What is clear is that…
simply by observing how Freud articulates this fundamental myth,
it is truly abusive to lump Moses together with Oedipus:

What the hell—
and I mean that quite literally—
does Moses have to do with Oedipus and the father of the primitive horde?

…there must be, in all of this,
something that belongs to manifest content and latent content.

To put it simply, and to conclude for today,
I will tell you that what we propose
is to analyze the Oedipus complex
as a dream of Freud.