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(All parts in English)

We are not at a time of the year suited for long trials.
Well, let’s try to lighten things up a bit.
I feel like it’s dragging on, as they say.

I would even be inclined to leave things there if I didn’t have to give you a little supplement,
intended, in short, to highlight the essential of what I hope to have conveyed this year, with a small hint of the future.

I mean: to give a glimpse, by tightening it a little more closely, of what some somewhat new notions—
well, assuredly those that bear this mark, don’t they…
which I always emphasize and which can be confirmed by those who work with me at a more practical level—
which bear this mark of being at the edge of an experience.

That it might serve elsewhere, at the level of something happening like this for now…
naturally, when things happen, at the moment they happen,
one never really knows what they are, especially when these things are covered with information…
but after all, something is happening at the University, and in various places, people are surprised:
what’s gotten into them, these students, our little darlings, our favorites,
the “pets” of civilization, what is happening to them?
That’s what those who play dumb say. They’re paid for that…

If, nevertheless, something in what I articulate—
which is this relation of the Analyst’s discourse to the Master’s discourse—
could show the path where, in some way, what is happening might be justified, might be understood—
what is happening at the moment,
which everyone is competing to minimize,
these little failed demonstrations, aren’t they, compressed, which will happen more and more in a corner—
if it could be motivated, made comprehensible, then,
at the very moment when I tell myself that in some way I should do it,
I would like you to hear this:
that to the extent that I manage to make you understand something,
you can be sure that I have fooled you.

Because that, in short, is the limit of what I would like to articulate today, as simply as I can.
It is that the relationship between things I have dared to manipulate for some time…
well, what, as a result, gives a certain guarantee that this discourse holds together…
which I have dared to manipulate in a way ultimately absolutely wild, I don’t hesitate…
and then, for quite a while, in short, it’s even through that that I took the first step in this teaching…
by speaking about the real on occasion.

And then, over the years, a little formula emerges: “The impossible, that is the real.”
And then, God knows I don’t abuse it straight away,
it has happened that I brought up in front of you I don’t know what reference—
well, that is more common, of course—to Truth.

There are still some very important remarks to be made…
and that is why I feel obliged to make some today…
very important ones to be made before leaving all this within the reach of the innocent,
so that they may use it wrongly and indiscriminately,
which is really commonplace sometimes in my surroundings.

At Vincennes, where I went for a visit eight days ago…
just to mark briefly the fact that I had responded to the invitation to that place…
I started to put this forward, and I had also announced it here the last time,
to give you, in some way, the right start.
It is a reference that is far from innocent; it is precisely for this reason that one must read Freud.

We read in Analysis Terminable and Interminable something concerning what the analyst is:
it is pointed out, isn’t it, that it would be quite wrong to demand an excess of normality or psychic correctness from him,
because that would make him too rare,
and then suddenly “Undendlich”—he is not “ist nicht zu vergessen”,
he is not to be forgotten,
that the analytical relationship is founded “auf Wahrheitsliebe”,
on the love of Truth, “daß heißt auf die Anerkennung der Realität”,
on the love of Truth, which means the recognition “der Realität”.

[Undendlich ist nicht zu vergessen, daß die analytische Beziehung auf Wahrheitsliebe, d. h. auf die Anerkennung der Realität gegründet ist und jeden Schein und Trug ausschließt.
(Die endliche und die unendliche Analyse, Teil VII, 1937)]

It is a word that, even if you don’t know German, you can recognize,
since it is modeled on our Latin.
It is in competition, in Freud’s usage, with the word “Wirklichkeit”,
which also, on occasion, signifies what translators, without looking further,
uniformly translate in both cases as “reality”.

It is quite curious; on this subject, I have a little memory of a sort of foaming rage
that took hold of a couple—
and more particularly one of them…
we must call him by name, after all,
it’s not by chance, he is a certain Laplanche,
whom everyone knows has played a certain role in the twists and turns of my relations with analysis…
at the thought that, in the face of the fact that another…
whom I will also name since I named the first: a certain Kaufmann…
had put forward the idea that one must distinguish between Wirklichkeit and Realität.

The kind of passion that had been unleashed in the first of these two characters by the fact of being outpaced by the other in this remark—which was indeed entirely novel, important—the shameless pseudo-contempt displayed for this meticulousness is still something quite interesting.

And the sentence ends: “und jeden Schein und Trug ausschließt”, and excludes…
“excludes”—this analytic relationship—
all “Schein”: all false appearances, “Trug”: deception.

Well, a sentence like this is very rich because, on the other hand, it is immediately in the following lines that, in sum…
this is what appears despite the little gesture of friendship Freud makes in passing to the analyst…
it is that, in sum, there is “beinahe den Anscheine”, we are very close to truly having the full appearance that “das Analysieren”,
the analytic function, the analytic act…
in truth, it does not mean anything other than this term that I used as the title of one of my seminars—
…would be the third of each of these “unmöglichen Beruf”, of these professions…
and “unmöglichen” is placed in quotation marks, I mean that he is quoting, he is quoting, after all, a refrain, something that, in one of his earlier works,
Freud, in a way, quotes himself by referring to the fact that he had supposedly already said it before, though no one knows exactly,
it has not been clearly found where he might have said it the first time.
Perhaps my research is incomplete; perhaps it was in the Letters to Fliess that he used it for the first time…
well, these three professions in question, he calls them in this earlier passage: Regieren, Erziehen, and Kurieren…
which is obviously consistent with the commonplace usage made of them—
that Kurieren should be there because analysis is new, and for Freud to classify analysis under it,
it is obviously in substitution for what is said about the act of healing…
so these are three professions—if indeed they are professions at all—that are impossible,
so it is Regieren, Erziehen, and Analysieren, that is, governing, educating, and analyzing.

One cannot fail to see the overlap, the exact fit with which these three terms align with what I distinguish this year
as constituting the root of three, or even four, discourses. These discourses…
it being well understood that it is a signifying articulation, an apparatus whose mere presence,
its existing status, in a way dominates and governs everything that might emerge there as speech on occasion…
the discourses in question—
I have also said this before—these are discourses without speech,
speech comes to be lodged there afterward as it can,
and it has been a long time since I have been able to tell myself that, regarding that intoxicating phenomenon called “taking the floor”,
there is a certain localization of the discourse into which it inserts itself,
which might, from time to time, prevent one from speaking without knowing what one is doing.

I tell you this as a note, I place it in the margins,
but after all, it is quite evident that in a certain style of usage of the kind seen in the “May excitement” of speech,
it cannot fail to come to my mind that one of the surest representatives of (a),
at a level that is not to be placed in historical times but rather in prehistoric times,
is the domestic animal. There you have it!

And in this case, then, I believe that I have not used quite the same letters,
but at the level of the domestic animal, it is absolutely clear that what corresponds to our S—
after all, it required a certain knowledge to domesticate it,
the dog, for instance—
well, it is barking.

And so, one cannot help but have the idea that if barking is indeed that, if it is about giving voice,
S1 takes on a meaning that, as you will see,
finally, has nothing abnormal in being located at the level where we place it, at a level of language.
Everyone knows that the domestic animal is only implicated in the language of a primitive knowledge,
but it does not possess it itself.

And so, what remains for it is, of course, to stir, to stir what has been given to it
that is closest to the signifier S1: it is the carrion.

You must surely know this,
you have certainly had a good dog, whether a hunting dog, a guard dog, or another,
at any rate, someone with whom you have had some familiarity—
this is irresistible to them, this carrion, they love it.
If ever, like Erzsébet Báthory,
the charming Hungarian who occasionally helped to dismember her servants—
which, of course, is the least one could afford from a certain position—
if she happened to place the said pieces just a little too close to the ground,
her dogs would bring them back to her immediately, all happy.
That is the somewhat overlooked side of the dog.
If you did not constantly spoil it at lunch or dinner by giving it things it only loves
because they come from your plate,
that is what it would bring you.

But attention must be paid to this:
at a higher level, which is that of an object (a) of another kind,
which we will try to define in a moment and which will bring us back to that old “astudé” that I have already mentioned,
speech itself can very well play the role of carrion.
It is, in any case, not much more appetizing.

And in truth, this is obviously one of the main reasons why the significance of language has been so poorly grasped.
It is because this kind of manipulation of speech, which has no other symbolic value,
has been confused with what actually pertains to discourse.
Thanks to this, it is never just at any time, nor in just any manner,
that speech functions as carrion.

And, of course, it would be necessary to pay attention, because, ultimately, the point, the aim of these remarks comes down to this—at least to being astonished, to asking oneself the question: how is it possible that the Master’s discourse, which has so wonderfully maintained its domination—as is proven, after all, by a fact that is poorly measured, namely that, exploited or not, workers work?

Work has never been so highly esteemed since humanity has existed.
It is out of the question, after all, not to work. It is a success!
That allows for what I call the Master’s discourse.

It must be said that, for this to happen, it had to exceed certain limits. To put it plainly, it has arrived at something whose mutation I have tried to point out to you…
I hope you remember it, but if you do not, which is quite possible, I will remind you right away…
this mutation that gives its style to the capitalist and to capital itself.

So why—my God—why does this happen… which is certainly not happening by chance:
– it would be wrong to believe that somewhere there are political experts calculating precisely everything that needs to be done,
but it would also be wrong to believe that there are none. There are!

It is not certain that they are always in a position from which they can act appropriately,
but fundamentally, perhaps that is not of such great importance.
It is enough that they exist, even in another position,
for what pertains to the displacement of discourse to be transmitted nonetheless.

And so, if we ask the question: my God, how can this capitalist society afford the luxury
of allowing the relaxation of this university discourse,
which is nonetheless only one of those transformations—
at least as I present it to you—
it is a quarter-turn in relation to the Master’s discourse?

This is a question that is certainly worth considering, worth considering in the sense that the real question to be asked is this:
by, in a way, indulging in this relaxation—
which, it must be said, is being offered—
are we not falling into a trap?

This is not a new idea;
I have already written about it in a short article that was explicitly requested of me for publication
in a newspaper whose singular style is that it is the only one reputed for balance and honesty,
and which is called Le Monde.

They insisted quite a lot that I write these few small pages;
it was in relation to the reorganization of psychiatry,
but in the end, I had also spoken a little about the reform, about all of this.
Well, despite this insistence,
it is rather striking that this little article,
which I will read to you one day as an aside,
was never published there. [Laughter]

Of course, at that time, it was titled “A Reform in Its Hole”—
I was precisely speaking about this hole,
this whirlpool-like hole that was manifestly intended to be created
on the occasion of a certain number of measures concerning the university.

And—my God—I believe there are moments when one may have certain scruples,
let’s say, in acting, in correctly relating to what I call the terms of certain fundamental discourses.
One might think twice before rushing to take advantage of such an opening that presents itself—
it is a responsibility to transport carrion through these corridors!

And it is to this that the remarks I introduce to you today must, in sum, be articulated.
Because, after all, they are not commonplace,
they are not common,
and it is like a mechanism:
one should at least have the notion that it might serve as a lever, as pliers,
or that it might be screwed in,
or that it might be constructed in this or that way.

Well then, there are several terms.
If I only put these small letters on the board here,
it is obviously not by chance…
it is because I do not want to put things that have the appearance of signifieds,
because I want, in some way, to authorize these signifieds in no way whatsoever.
It is already a little more authorization to write them down.

I have already spoken about what constitutes places,
the places where these signifiers are inscribed.
I have already addressed what concerns the agent,
precisely to emphasize the blessed fate
that allows the French language to make agent
not necessarily the one who acts, but the one who makes others act.

So, of course, as one might already suspect,
the place of the Master is, with all probability,
defined by the fact that it is not entirely clear
that the Master functions,
and the best thing one could ask—
though, of course, I was not the first to do so—
a certain Hegel devoted himself to this,
but one must take a closer look because it is…
it is quite unfortunate to think that, in the end,
perhaps not even five people here
have truly read The Phenomenology of Spirit
since I started talking about it.

Well, I am not going to ask them to raise their hands!
It is really annoying that, up to now, only two people have read it perfectly…
since even I, I must confess to you, have not explored every corner of it.
It was my master, Alexandre Kojève, who, of course, demonstrated it to me a thousand times over,
and then also another person—of a kind you would not believe—
who truly read The Phenomenology of Spirit in such a luminous way that everything contained in Kojève’s notes—
which I have read, and which I passed back to him—was truly superfluous.

What is incredible is that, no matter how much I exhaust myself pointing out
that The Critique of Practical Reason is manifestly a book of eroticism
that is extraordinarily funnier than what gets published by Eric Losfeld,
if I tell you that The Phenomenology of Spirit is sheer mad humor,
well, that will have no more effect!
And yet, that is precisely what it is—it really is the most extraordinary thing—
but it is a humor that is also cold,
I would not call it black.

There is one thing that one can be absolutely convinced of:
he absolutely knows what he is doing.
What he is doing is making them swallow the trick and throwing everyone in,
this, of course, being based on the fact that what he says is the truth.

There is obviously no better way to pin down the Master-signifier, the S1 that is there on the board,
than by identifying it with death.
And so, what is it about?
It is about demonstrating, in a dialectic, as he puts it…
this is the zenith, the rise in thought of the function of this term…
what, in sum, is the entry into play of this brute in The Phenomenology of Spirit, as he puts it?

Well, it is absolutely seductive, sensational.
The truth of what he articulates we can truly read right in front of us,
provided, of course, that we allow ourselves to be caught up in this text,
because what I articulate is precisely that it cannot be read head-on.
The truth, then, of what he articulates is this:
it is the relation to the real as properly impossible,
which is to say, it is not at all clear for whom… why!—excuse me—why there would be a Master
who would emerge from the struggle to the death for pure prestige—
as it is said, as he says, well, as he himself says—
and that this would result in that strange initial arrangement.

And the pinnacle of it is that he finds a way—
true, within a conception of history that touches upon what emerges from it,
namely, the succession, at last, of phases of dominance,
of the composition of the play of spirit,
which unfolds along this thread that is not nothing,
leading very precisely up to him,
to what is called philosophical thought—
and that, in the end, it turns out that it is the slave,
through his labor, who gives the Master his truth by relegating him to the background—
because, through the virtue of this labor—
forced labor, as you may note at the outset—
the slave arrives, at the end of history,
at that term which is called Absolute Knowledge.

Nothing is said about what happens then,
because, in truth, in Hegelian composition, there are not four terms.
First, there was the Master and then the Slave,
whom I call S2 here,
but whom you may just as well identify with the term of a jouissance
that he did not want to renounce,
and precisely because of this,
he had to renounce it.

What substitutes for this—
which is nonetheless not its equivalent—
is labor.
Thanks to which…
to the serenity of the dialectical mutation,
to the ballet,
to the minuet that is established from that moment on
and that he traverses from end to end,
thread by thread,
and through the development of culture…
“the end of history” rewards us with this knowledge,
which is not qualified as completed—
and there are good reasons for that—
but as absolute.
It is undeniable:
the Master appears only insofar as he has been the instrument,
the magnificent cuckold.

What is absolutely sublime in this very remarkable dialectical deduction
is that it was undertaken and—if one may say so—succeeded,
for all along…
let us take the example of what he says, for instance, about culture…
all along, the most pertinent remarks about the play of the incidences of the exercises of the mind abound.
I repeat: there is nothing funnier.

“The ruse of reason,” he tells us,
has from the beginning been what has directed this whole game.
This ruse of reason is, of course, a very beautiful term,
which, for us analysts, obviously retains its value
precisely because we can follow it at the level of a certain b-a-ba,
reasonable or not—
in any case, we deal with something very cunning in its speech precisely:
it is the unconscious.

Only, the height of this ruse is not where one thinks it is.
It is certainly the ruse of reason,
but one must also acknowledge and tip one’s hat
to the ruse of the reasoner.
Had it been possible, at the beginning of the last century,
at the time of the Battle of Jena,
for this extraordinary trick called The Phenomenology of Spirit
to have spellbound anyone,
the coup would have been successful.

It is quite obvious that there is not a single moment
where we might come even remotely close
to the ascent of the Slave:
nothing is more still a slave than the Slave.
And this incredible way of appropriating for himself—
for his labor—
some sort of progress,
as they say,
some kind of advancement of knowledge,
is truly of extraordinary futility.

But what I call the ruse of the reasoner
is there to make us see a completely essential dimension,
one that must be heeded.
It is this:
if we designate the place of the Agent,
whatever it may be…
which is not always that of the Master-signifier,
since all the other signifiers will, in turn, pass through it…
if the question is this:
what makes this Agent act?
How does this extraordinary cycle—
around which turns what can properly be called only revolution—
how can it take place?

Here, at a certain level then—
let us return to Hegel’s term—
thanks to the Master, labor is born into the world.
So—
what, then, is the truth?
It is there that it is placed,
with a question mark.
What inaugurates—
for, after all, it has not always been so,
it has only existed since historical times—
what puts this Agent into play?

It is a good thing to realize, in the case of someone so brilliant, so dazzling, that precisely because of this, we do not think about it, we do not see it—such is Hegel: a representative, if I may say so, a sublime one, of the discourse of knowledge, of university knowledge.

We, in France, never have philosophers—
only people like that who wander the roads,
small members of little provincial societies, like Maine de Biran,
or figures like Descartes, who roamed across Europe.
And then, one must still know how to read him, too,
to really grasp his tone when he speaks of what he might expect from his birth—
one can still see what kind of man he was.
That does not mean he was an idiot—far from it!
But, in our country, philosophers are not found in universities.
We can count that to our advantage!
But in Germany, it is at the university.

And so, what must be seen is this:
it is what one is capable of thinking, at a certain level of the university status,
of thinking: well, the poor little ones, the dear darlings,
those who, at that moment, merely enter the great era of drudgery,
of relentless exploitation, isn’t that so?—
that of the industrial era—
we will bring them to the revelation of this truth,
this truth that it is they who make history,
and that the Master is nothing but the underling who was needed to start the music in the first place.

It is a remark that has its weight, and I intend to emphasize it strongly,
particularly because of the phrase Freud uses
to say that the analytic relationship must be gegründet on the love of Truth.
He really was a charming man, that Freud!
He was all fire and flame.
He had his weaknesses, of course—
his relationship with his wife, for instance, is unimaginable!
To have tolerated such a hag his entire life, that is something!

But take this to heart:
if there is one thing that Truth should inspire in you,
if you wish to sustain the analytische Beziehung,
it is certainly not love.

Truth, in this case, if it is indeed the one
that ultimately brings forth the signifier of death—
and it certainly appears that way—
and even if there is something that gives an entirely different meaning
to what Hegel advanced,
it is precisely what Freud had already discovered at that time,
and which he named, as best he could, the death instinct.

Namely, the radical and fundamental character of repetition…
this repetition that insists,
that characterizes what constitutes the psychic reality
of the being inscribed in language…
well, the fact is that, since Truth has no other face,
there is no reason to go mad over it!

To tell the truth, that is not entirely accurate either:
Truth has more than one face.
But precisely, what might be our first line of conduct,
for us analysts, is this:
to be a little wary,
to not suddenly go mad over a truth,
as one might over the first pretty face encountered at the corner of a street.

And to put it plainly,
if we encounter this remark of Freud at precisely this point,
accompanied by this:
“das heisst auf die Anerkennung der Realität”,
it is indeed enough to make us say that, perhaps,
there is a naïve real—
that is how people usually put it—
a real that passes itself off as Truth.

And then, after that, Truth is something one experiences,
but that does not mean at all
that it knows more about the real—
especially if we are talking about knowing.
Perhaps…
if you remember the outlines of what I have indicated…
the stage where the real is defined as the impossible
when it comes to demonstrating the true
within the register of symbolic articulation,
this might provide us with a guideline,
something that allows us to measure our love for truth.
In truth, indeed, if this real is defined as the impossible,
then that is precisely what should make us grasp—what?

To govern, to educate, to analyze as well,
and why not add to make desire,
to complete the definition of what would be the discourse of the Hysteric?
Well, these are, indeed, operations that are, in the strictest sense, impossible,
and that is why they are there.
They are there, and they hold up remarkably well,
posing for us the question of their truth—
namely, how do these mad things occur,
things that are defined in the real only insofar
as they can be articulated,
when approached, as impossible?
It is clear that their full articulation as impossible
is precisely what gives us the risk, the chance,
the possibility that their real, so to speak, might burst forth.

If we are forced to amuse ourselves for so long
in the corridors and labyrinths of truth,
it is precisely because there is something
that prevents us from arriving.
And why be surprised by this?
Why be surprised, in the case of those discourses
that are entirely new for us?
I do not mean, of course,
that we have not had a good three-quarters of a century
to consider things from this angle,
but still, isn’t the seat in the analytic chair
the best position from which to tighten the impossible?

Whatever the case may be,
that we are still spinning in this dimension
of love for truth—
a love that, if anything,
precisely makes the impossibility of what sustains itself as real
slip through our fingers entirely—
very specifically at the level of the Master’s discourse.

Well, that is what necessitates the reference
to what, fortunately, analytic discourse allows us to glimpse,
to articulate exactly,
and that is why it is important that I articulate it.
I am quite convinced that there are five or six people here
who can very well shift it in such a way
that it has a chance of reemerging.

I am not telling you that this is the lever of Archimedes,
I am not telling you that what I enunciate
has the slightest pretension to renew the system of the world,
nor the thought of History.
I am merely indicating how analysis places us in a position
to receive a certain number of things
that, by the happenstance of encounters,
may appear enlightening to someone
who has a bit of experience with this practice.

After all, I might very well never have met Kojève!
If I had never met Kojève, it is very likely that, like all Frenchmen educated in a certain period,
I would not have even suspected that The Phenomenology of Spirit was something of importance.

The impossibility—what analysis allows us to perceive of it—
is that the obstacle to encircling it, to tightening its grip,
is precisely what alone might, in the end, introduce a mutation into it:
the bare real—no truth—that would not be bad!
Only, here is the issue: between us and the real, there is truth.

Truth—one day, in a lyrical outburst, I once stated to you
that it was the dear little sister of Jouissance.
That should already have come back to you—
at least, I hope it has returned to the minds of some of you—
at the moment when what I am going to emphasize in these four formulas,
two of which are rewritten here, is precisely this:

If the first line in this relation,
indicated by an arrow, a direction,
is always defined as impossible,
it is because, indeed, it is impossible
that there could be a Master who, just like that,
gets his world to function.

Making people work is even more exhausting
than working oneself, if one had to truly do it.
The Master never does it.
He makes a gesture of the Master-signifier,
and everyone rushes!

This is where we must begin,
which is indeed something quite precious and always tangible.
So, the impossibility that is right there,
written in the first line,
the question is whether…
as is already indicated by the place given to the term Truth…
it is perhaps at the level of the second line
that we would find a true one.

Only, here’s the thing: at the level of the second line,
there is not the slightest arrow.
Not only is there no communication,
but there is, strictly speaking, something that blocks it.

And this, in the strictest sense, is this:
what results—at least at this first level—from labor
is that…
this is what was discovered by a man named Marx:
it is that he gave full weight to this term,
which is what labor is applied to,
and which we already know is called production…
well, the essential thing is to realize
that this production,
no matter what signs or Master-signifiers
are inscribed in that place,
has in any case no relation to the truth of the thing.

One can do whatever one wants,
one can try to link this production
to needs that are needs that one constructs,
but there is no way to reconcile human existence
with the relation between production and Truth.
There is no way out of it.

Every impossibility, whatever it may be—
and it is this that we are engaging with here—
is always articulated,
as surely as,
if it keeps us breathless around its truth,
it is because something is shielding it,
something that we shall call impotence.

At the level of University discourse, for instance,
to take this first case…

the one articulated here,
where the term S2 is in this position—
with the utterly delusional pretension
of having, as its production,
a thinking being, a subject—
well, it is simply out of the question
that, as a subject,
this produced being could,
for even a single moment,
perceive itself as the Master of knowledge.

That is something we can grasp in a palpable way,
but, of course, it goes further than that.

Because at the level of the Master’s discourse—
this discourse of the Master,
which, thanks to Hegel,
I allow myself to presuppose—
since, as you will see,
we now know it only in a considerably modified form.

After all, it is a construction,
even a reconstruction—
this plus-de-jouir
that I have articulated this year.

But what seems important to me—
this plus-de-jouir
that I place at the outset
as a truer support—
but let us be wary,
because this is precisely
what makes it dangerous, after all.

Its strength lies in being articulated this way,
in what one finds
when reading people who,
themselves, had not read Hegel—
reading, primarily, Aristotle.

What we sense is that this relation
between the Master and the Slave,
which truly posed a problem for him,
which he sought to uncover the truth of—
well, in truth,
it is quite magnificent
to see, in the three or four
fascinating passages where he attempts to resolve it,
that he follows only one path:
a path of a difference of nature—
a difference of nature
from which the good of the Slave would emerge.

He is not a university professor.
He is not a little trickster like Hegel.
He senses very well that,
when he formulates this,
it slips,
it slides on all sides.

He is not very sure of himself,
nor is he very confident.
He does not impose his opinion,
but still, he senses
that if there were something
that could justify the relation
between the Master and the Slave,
it might be found in that direction.

Ah, if only they were not of the same sex,
now that would be truly sublime!

If it were man and woman—
then he allows a glimpse of hope.

Unfortunately, that is not the case.
They are not of different sexes,
and so his arms drop.

So what we clearly see—
what it is about—
is the question of what justifies
this plus-de-jouir—
that is to say,
what the Master receives
from the labor of the Slave.

It would seem to go smoothly, just like that.

What is incredible
is that no one seems to realize that, precisely—
and this is where a lesson is to be learned—
it does not go smoothly at all!

That is to say, ethical problems suddenly start to proliferate: there is The Nicomachean Ethics,
and then there is The Ethics… for yet another friend,
and then there are several such reflections on morality,
and we never get out of it: this plus-de-jouir, we do not know what to do with it.

What does that mean?
For us to come to the point, you see,
of placing a sovereign good at the heart of the world,
we must really be as entangled in it
as a fish is with an apple.
And yet, this plus-de-jouir that the slave brings us
is right within reach.

Only, what all this ancient thought demonstrates,
what it attests to…
which Hegel makes us revisit through his marvelous sleights of hand,
his repetitions and other devices,
right up to the politicized masochism of the Stoics…
well, it is that this cannot take place as plus-de-jouir,
as something that settles in comfortably as the subject of the Master.

And then, if we take the discourse of the Hysteric, as I articulate it:
place S in the top left, S1 and S2 to the right,
and a in the place of truth.

Well, neither can this happen solely as a production of knowledge—
it does not justify itself,
it does not motivate itself—
the division, the symptomatic tearing apart of the Hysteric.

For her truth is that she must be the object (a) in order to be desired.
The object (a) is, in the end, rather meager—
although, of course, men are crazy about it,
and they do not even dare to imagine passing through anything else.
Another sign of impotence covering up the subtlest of impossibilities.

And finally, at the level of the discourse of the Analyst…

…which, curiously…
naturally, no one, at least not until now,
has noticed…
is that if one takes it for a production,
it is rather curious that what is produced is nothing other
than the discourse of the Master,
since it is S1 that comes to the forefront.

Perhaps—just perhaps—after all,
if we have made these three-quarters of a turn,
and still…
as I was saying last time when I left Vincennes…
perhaps it is from the discourse of the Analyst
that another style of Master-signifier may emerge.

Whatever the case may be,
whether it is of another style or not,
first of all, it is not tomorrow nor the next day
that we will know which one it is,
and in any case, at least for now,
we are entirely powerless to relate it
to what is at stake in the position of the analyst—
namely, to what he presents
as the seduction of truth,
the idea that he knows a bit
about what, in principle, he represents.

This is what I emphasize
by centering [a → S]—
the prominence of this impossibility of his position—
since he places himself in the position of representing,
of being the agent,
the cause of desire.

Thus, the relationship between these four terms is defined.
I mean, there are four of them—
because the one I have not named
is obviously the one that is unnameable,
since it is on its prohibition
that this entire structure is founded.
That is to say, jouissance.

It is around this—
it is here that the view,
the small window,
the perspective that analysis has provided us,
introduces us to something
that may be a fruitful endeavor—
not of thought,
but of action.
And it is in this
that this step is revolutionary.

It is not centered on the subject…
however fertile this hysterical questioning may have been,
this hysterical questioning,
whose introduction into History
I will soon discuss…
it is not because
the entrance of the subject as agent of discourse
has yielded very surprising results—
the first of which is science—
that this is where the key to the whole mechanism lies.

The key lies around the questioning
of what jouissance is.

Jouissance is limited by natural processes.
To tell the truth, we know nothing about these natural processes.
We only know that we have ended up considering
as natural the comfort in which we are maintained
by a more or less ordered society—
except, of course, that each one of us
is dying to know
what it would be like
if it really hurt.

Hence, this sadomasochistic obsession
that characterizes our pleasant sexual atmosphere.
This is entirely futile, even secondary.

What is important is this:
whether natural or not,
it is closely linked
to the very origin
of the entry of the signifier into play
that we can speak of jouissance.

We will never know what the oyster or the beaver enjoys—
no one will ever know anything about it—
because, in the absence of the signifier,
there is no distance
between its jouissance and its body.

They are on the same level
as the plant—
which, after all,
may very well have its own jouissance too,
for all we know!

And it is precisely in correlation with the primary form of the entry of language into play—
what I call the mark, the unary trait—
and if you will: as marked for death—
if you want to give it its full meaning, observe carefully
that nothing acquires meaning except when death comes into play.

It is from this cleavage, this separation of jouissance and the body—
now mortified, an inscriptional game, a herd marked as the favorite by the unary trait—
it is from this moment that the question arises.

And there is no need to wait for the subject
to have revealed itself as well hidden at the level of the Master’s truth [S].
One sees quite clearly that, after all, its division is nothing other than,
most probably, that radical ambiguity attached to the very term truth.

It is insofar as there is language
that everything established within the order of discourse leaves something gaping open—
which means that, in sum, we can be sure that, by following its thread,

– we will never do anything but follow a contour of everything it brings us in excess,
– but it is the less that we would really need to grasp.

And to answer the question with which I began—
that is, what is happening at the current level—
at present—
within university discourse—
what must be seen is that the Master’s discourse,
if it is so solidly established
that—apparently—
few of you grasp to what extent it is stable,
this is because of the following:

What Marx demonstrated—
I must say, without highlighting its full significance—
is that what is at stake in production
is called not plus-de-jouir, but surplus-value.

That is, something which, from a certain point in history…
and we are not going to break our heads trying to determine
whether this was because of Luther or Calvin
or some maritime trade around Genoa,
in the Mediterranean or elsewhere…
for the important point is this:

From a certain day onward, plus-de-jouir is given a price,
is accounted for, is totaled—
and that is where what we call the accumulation of capital begins.

Do you sense, in relation to what I stated earlier
about the impossibility of linking plus-de-jouir
to the Master’s truth [a ◊ S],
the step that has been taken—
I am not saying it is the last step, nor that it is decisive—
but the impossibility of this junction
is suddenly emptied out:

From the moment surplus-value is added to capital,
there is no problem anymore—
it is homogeneous—
we are as if…
we are all swimming—
thanks to the blessed times in which we live—
in values!

But from that moment on,
what is so striking—
and yet seems unnoticed—
is that the Master-signifier…
despite the fact that, if I may say so,
the clouds of impotence have been cleared…
appears all the more unassailable,
precisely in its impossibility.

Where is it?
How to name it?
How to locate it,
if not in its effects—
which, of course, are murderous?

Denounce its imperialism!
But how to stop this little mechanism?

And then, as for university discourse,
one must at least acknowledge
that there can be no other place
where there is precisely a chance
for something to turn a little.

How?
I will reserve that explanation for later.

As you see, I am proceeding slowly.
For, after all:

— The object (a), at the level of university discourse,
comes into play at the position that shifts every time things move,
at the position of exploitation, more or less tolerable.

— The object (a) is what allows us
to introduce a bit of air
into this function of plus-de-jouir.

— The object (a) is what all of you are,
insofar as you are seated here—
so many miscarriages of what was,
for those who engendered you,
the cause of desire.
This is what psychoanalysis teaches you—
that you must find your way within it.

And do not trouble me with remarks
that I would do well to point out to those
who stir here or elsewhere
that there is a world of difference
between the miscarriage of the grand bourgeoisie
and that of the proletariat!

Because, after all,
the miscarriage of the grand bourgeoisie,
as a miscarriage,
is not necessarily forced
to drag its incubator around with it all the time!

There is a certain pretension in positioning oneself at a point that, all of a sudden, would be particularly illuminated and illuminable by what might shift in its relations. However, one must not push things as far as this little memory I share with you—of a person who kept me company for at least two or three months during what I usually call my wild youth—a ravishing young woman who used to say to me: “Me, I am of pure proletarian race.” [Laughter]

One is never truly done with segregation.
And I can even tell you that it will never be anything but something that resurges all the more forcefully,
and that nothing can function without it.
But that is a digression.

Whatever the case may be,
whether here it is in the form of a,
the little (a) in a living form—
however much of a miscarriage it may be—
it manifests that, in any case,
there is a level at which the effects of language do not settle:
it is at the level of those who have produced them—
the effects of language—
since no child has ever been born
without having been caught up in this traffic
through the mediation of its charming so-called progenitors,
who themselves were entangled in all the problems of discourse,
with, of course, the previous generation behind them as well.

Well, it is at this level that one should really know how to interrogate.
And if we want something to turn…
of course, it can never do anything but turn—
I have emphasized this enough as a final point—
it is certainly not out of progressivism;
it is simply because it cannot stop turning,
and if it does not turn, it squeaks…
so, if we want to see how things might turn precisely where they pose a question—
that is, at the level of the little (a),
in what concerns its confrontation with something called education—
has that ever truly existed?

Yes, no doubt!
Among the Ancients, who, after all,
give us the best testimony of it—
and then, throughout the ages,
in entirely formal, classical things,
in a way copied from the Ancients.

But for us, at this moment,
at the level where things are happening,
what can this—at this point of osculation—
hope for?

All that remains of the living body—
that is to say, this infant—
why not—
this little defecator,
this gaze, this cry, this wailing—
it barks—
what can it do?

That is what I will try to speak to you about next time—
what it might mean,
what I shall call the strike of culture.

[Applause]