🦋🤖 Robo-Spun by IBF 🦋🤖

(All parts in English)

If I was looking for these pages, it was not to make sure but to reassure myself about what I stated last time,
the text of which I do not have at this moment—I just complained about that.

Some remarks come back to me…
I have no difficulty making an effort for this…
…of the following kind: it so happens that some people have wondered, at certain points in my discourse last time, as they put it, “where I am going with this.”

Other remarks have also reached me: that people at the back of the room have trouble hearing. I will make an effort…
I had absolutely no idea about this last time,
I thought we had as good acoustics as in the previous lecture hall…
so if someone could signal me at the moment when, despite myself, my voice drops, I will try to do my best.

So, at certain turns, one might have wondered last time, “where I am going with this.”
In truth, this kind of question seems to me, well, premature enough to be significant,
meaning that these are far from negligible people—on the contrary, they are very perceptive individuals
from whom this remark was reported to me, sometimes calmly, by themselves.

It would perhaps be…
given precisely what I put forward last time…
more relevant to ask where I am starting from, or even where I want to make you start from.

Already, that has two meanings:
– it might mean “going somewhere,”
– but it can also mean “clearing out from where you are.”

This “where I am going with this” is, in any case, highly exemplary of what I put forward concerning the desire of the Other: Che vuoi?,
what does he want? Obviously, when one can say it right away, one feels much more at ease.
This is an opportunity to note the inertia factor that this Che vuoi? represents, at least when one wants to answer it.
That is precisely why, in analysis, we strive to leave this question in suspense.

Nevertheless, I clearly specified last time that I am not here in the position of the analyst.
So ultimately, to this question, I feel obliged to respond—I must say, let’s say, why I spoke.
I spoke of the semblant, and I said something that is far from common knowledge.

First of all, I insisted, I emphasized this: that the semblant which presents itself as what it is, is the primary function of truth.
There is a certain “I speak” that does this, and recalling it is not superfluous in order to…
to give its proper place to this truth that poses so many logical difficulties.

It is all the more important to recall this because if there is in Freud…
to designate, in this way, a certain tone…
if there is in Freud something revolutionary…
I have already warned against the abusive use of this word…
but it is certain that if there was a moment when Freud was revolutionary,
it was inasmuch as he placed at the forefront a function that is also…
this is, by the way, the only element he has in common…
that is also the element brought by Marx: namely, the consideration of a certain number of facts as symptoms.

The dimension of the symptom is that it speaks,
– it speaks even to those who do not know how to listen,
– it does not say everything, even to those who do.

This promotion of the symptom—this is the turning point we are aiming for in a certain register
which, let’s say, continued to hum along for centuries around the theme of knowledge.

We cannot exactly say that from the standpoint of knowledge we are completely deprived,
and one senses well what is outdated in the theory of knowledge when it comes to explaining the order of processes
that the formulations of science constitute, of which physical science currently provides models.
That we are, parallel to this evolution of science, in a position that one might describe as being on the path to some truth—this shows a certain heterogeneity in the status of our two registers.

Except that in my teaching, and only there, an effort is made to demonstrate its coherence.
Which is not self-evident, or is so only for those who, in this practice of analysis, add to the semblant.
This is what I will try to articulate today.

I have stated a second thing. The semblant is not only identifiable, essential, for designating the primary function of truth:
it is impossible, without this reference, to qualify what discourse is.
What defines discourse, at least that by which I attempted last year to give weight to this term,
by defining four of them, which last time I could only recall, recall I believe, but hastily, by their titles.
To which some, of course, felt that at that point one was losing one’s footing. What can be done?

I am not going to repeat, even briefly, the statement of what is at stake,
although, of course, I will have to return to it and show what is there.

I indicated—one may refer to it—in the responses titled “Radiophonie” from the latest Scilicet
what is at stake, what this function of discourse consists of, as I stated it last year.

It is supported by four privileged places, among which one remained unnamed,
precisely the one that, in each of these discourses, gives the title through the function of its occupant:

– when the master-signifier occupies a certain place, I speak of the discourse of the Master [M],
– when a certain knowledge occupies it, I speak of the discourse of the University [U],
– when the subject, in its division—the founding division of the unconscious—occupies it, I speak of the discourse of the Hysteric [H],
– and finally, when the surplus-jouissance occupies it, I speak of the discourse of the Analyst [A].

M U H A

This somewhat “sensitive” place…
the one at the top left, for those who were there and still remember it…
this place, which in the discourse of the Master is occupied by the signifier as master: S₁,
this place, not yet designated, I now name it by the name it deserves: it is very precisely the place of the semblant.

This means, following what I stated last time, how much the signifier, if I may say so, is in its place there.
Hence the success of the discourse of the Master, a success that nonetheless deserves some attention,
for, after all, who can believe that any Master has ever ruled by force?

Especially at the outset, because, as Hegel reminds us in that admirable sleight of hand: one man is worth another.
And if the discourse of the Master sets the line, the structure, the focal point around which several civilizations are ordered,
it is because its driving force is indeed of a different order than violence.

This does not mean that we are sure, in any way, that in these facts, which must be stated
– that we can only articulate them with the utmost caution,
– that as soon as we pin them down with any term—primitive, prelogical, archaic, whatever of whatever order—
…archaic, ἀρχή (archè), that would mean the beginning—why?
And why would it not also mean a waste product, these so-called primitive societies?
But nothing decides this.

What is certain is that they show us:
that it is not necessary for things to be established according to the discourse of the Master, first of all.
The mytho-ritual configuration, which is the best way to pin them down,
does not necessarily imply the articulation of the discourse of the Master.

Nevertheless, it must be said that there is a certain form of alibi in our excessive interest in what is not the discourse of the Master,
in most cases a way of muddying the waters—while we focus on that, we do not focus on something else.

And yet, the discourse of the Master is an essential articulation, and the way I have presented it
should be something that some—I am not saying all of you—but some should strive to wrestle their minds with.
Because what is at stake…
and I emphasized this as well last time…
everything that can arise as new and that has always been called…
and with a particular emphasis on the “temperament” that should be given to it…
what is called “revolutionary” can only consist in a change, in a displacement of discourse,
that is, in each of these places.
I would like, in a way, to create an image…
but to what kind of cretinization can an image lead?
…to represent it with—if one may say so—four “cups,” each with its own name,
illustrating how, in these cups, a certain number of terms slide.

– namely, what I have distinguished from S₁,
– S₂, insofar as at the point where we are, S₂ constitutes a certain body of knowledge,
– the a, insofar as it is a direct consequence of the discourse of the Master,
– the S, which, in the discourse of the Master, occupies this place—a place we will discuss today—which I have already named, namely, the place of truth.

Truth is not the opposite of semblant.
Truth, if I may say so, is this dimension…
or this “demansion” (d.e.m.a.n…)
if you allow me to coin a new word to designate these “cups”…
this demansion which is strictly correlative to that of the semblant,
this demansion, as I have told you, which—this latter one, that of the semblant—supports it.

So, something does indicate where this semblant is leading [cf. beginning of the session: “where I am going with this”].

It is clear that the question may be somewhat beside the point, namely…
and here, this has reached me through entirely indirect channels…
from two young minds…
whom I greet, if they are still here today,
may they not be offended that they were overheard in passing…
who were apparently gravely nodding their caps while asking:
“Is he a pernicious idealist?” [Laughter]

Am I a pernicious idealist?
That seems to me to be completely beside the point! [Laughter]

Because I started…
and with what emphasis! I would say that I was saying the exact opposite of what I had to say…
by emphasizing this: that discourse is an artifact.

What I initiate with this is exactly the opposite, because the semblant is the opposite of the artifact.
As I have pointed out, in nature, the semblant proliferates.

The question arises as soon as it is no longer about knowledge,
as soon as one no longer believes that it is through perception…
from which we would extract I-don’t-know-what quintessence…
that we come to know something, but rather through an apparatus, which is discourse.

The Idea is no longer in question.
The first time the Idea made its appearance, it was a bit better situated than after the exploits of Bishop Berkeley.
It was about Plato, who was wondering where the reality of what was named a horse resided.

His idea of the Idea was the importance of this naming.
In this manifold and transient thing, which was, by the way, perfectly obscure in his time, even more so than in ours,
is it not the case that all the reality of a horse lies in this Idea, insofar as it means the signifier a horse?

One should not believe that just because Aristotle places the accent of reality on the individual,
he is much more advanced.
The individual means, very precisely: that which cannot be said.
And to a certain extent, if Aristotle were not the marvelous logician that he is,
who made that one decisive step—
the step that gives us a reference point for what an articulated sequence of signifiers is—
one could say that in his way of pinpointing what οὐσία (ousia), in other words, the real, is,
he behaves like a mystic.

The very nature of οὐσία (ousia)…
he himself says it…
is that it can in no way be attributed, it is not sayable.
What is not sayable is precisely what is mystical.
Only, he does not seem to dwell too much on that side, but he does leave room for the mystical.

It is obvious that the solution to the question of the Idea could not have come to Plato.
It is on the side of function and variable that all of this finds its solution.

If anything is clear, it is that if I am something,
it is that I am not a nominalist.
That is to say, I do not start from the premise that a name is something simply stamped onto the real.

And one must choose: if one is a nominalist, one must completely renounce dialectical materialism.
So, in sum, the nominalist tradition…
which, strictly speaking, is the only real danger of idealism…
that can arise here, in a discourse such as mine…
is very obviously ruled out.

It is not a matter of being a realist in the sense that one was in the Middle Ages, the realism of Universals, but rather of designating, of pointing to this: that our discourse, our scientific discourse, finds the real only insofar as it depends on the function of the semblant.

The effects of the articulation—I mean algebraic articulation—of the semblant…
and in this sense, it is only a matter of letters…
this is the only apparatus by which we designate what is real: the real is what makes a hole in this semblant.

In this articulated semblant that is scientific discourse…
scientific discourse progresses without even concerning itself anymore with whether or not it is a semblant…
the only concern is that its network, its mesh, its lattice, as one says, makes the right holes appear in the right place.

It has no reference except for the impossible, to which its deductions lead—this impossible is the real.
The apparatus of discourse, insofar as it is through its own rigor that it encounters the limits of its consistency,
this is what, in physics, we aim at as something that is the real.

What concerns us in our domain, namely, the field of truth…
and why it is the field of truth—only thus qualified—that concerns us,
I will try to articulate today…
for what concerns us, we are dealing with something that becomes aware that it differs from this position of the real in physics.

This something, which resists, which is not permeable to all meaning, which is a consequence of our discourse,
this is what is called the fantasy [S◊a].
And what is to be tested are its limits, its structure, the function,
the relation within a discourse between one of its terms—a, the surplus-jouissance—and the S of the subject,
that is, precisely, the point that in the discourse of the Master is broken:

This is what we have to test in its function, when in the completely opposite position, where the little (a) occupies this place [disc. A]…
it is the subject who stands opposite…
this place where he is interrogated—this is where the fantasy must take on its status,
its status defined by the very share of impossibility that exists in the analytic questioning [a→S].

To clarify what I mean by “where I am going with this,” I will turn to what I want to emphasize today
regarding what pertains to analytic theory.
In this respect, I will not go back, I will skip over a function that is expressed in a certain way of speaking that I use here, addressing you.

I can only, however, draw your attention to this: that if last time I called upon you with the term…
which may have seemed impertinent—to how many, and justly so…
of hasty surplus-jouissance, should I then speak of some sort of caviar, of a pressed signal?

And yet, this has a meaning—a meaning that is precisely what my discourse preserves,
which in no way has the character of what Freud designated as “the discourse of the leader.”
It is indeed at the level of discourse, in the early 1920s, that Freud articulated in Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse
something that, quite singularly, turned out to be at the principle of the Nazi phenomenon.

Refer to the diagram he provides in this article, at the end of the chapter “Identification”:

You will see there, almost in plain sight, the indicated relations between the great I and a.
Truly, the diagram seems made for the Lacanian symbols to be inscribed within it.
What, in a discourse, addresses the Other as a “You”
brings forth an identification with something one might call “the human idol.”

If last time I spoke of red blood as the most futile blood to hurl against the semblant,
it was precisely because—as you have seen—one cannot advance to overthrow the idol
without immediately taking its place afterward, as we know has happened to a certain type of martyr!

It is precisely inasmuch as something in any discourse that appeals to the “You”
provokes a disguised, secret identification—one that is only to that enigmatic object that may be nothing at all,
the minuscule surplus-jouissance of Hitler, which perhaps went no further than his mustache—
this is what was sufficient to crystallize people who had nothing mystical about them,
who were as deeply engaged as possible in the process of capitalist discourse,
with all that this implies in terms of the questioning of surplus-jouissance in its form of surplus-value.

It was a matter of knowing whether, at a certain level, one would still get one’s own little share,
and this was indeed enough to provoke this effect of identification.
It is simply amusing that this took the form of an idealization of “race,”
that is, of the very thing that, in this context, was the least concerned.

But one can determine where this fictional character originates from—one can find it!
What must simply be stated is that no such ideology is needed for racism to form;
it is sufficient for a surplus-jouissance to be recognized as such.
And anyone who takes even the slightest interest in what may happen
would do well to acknowledge that all forms of racism,
insofar as a surplus-jouissance alone is enough to sustain them,
– this is what is now on the agenda,
– this is what, in the years to come, is looming over us.

You will understand better why when I tell you
what theory, the authentic practice of analytic theory,
allows us to formulate concerning what surplus-jouissance truly is.

People imagine, they imagine that they are saying something when they say that what Freud brought forth
is the underlying presence of sexuality in everything that pertains to discourse.
They say this when they have been slightly touched by what I set forth regarding the importance of discourse in defining the unconscious,
and then fail to notice that I have not yet, myself, addressed what is at stake in this term “sexuality,” sexual relation.

It is certainly strange…
or rather, it is not strange except from one perspective—the perspective of the charlatanry
that presides over all therapeutic action in our society…
it is strange that no one has noticed the world of difference between the term “sexuality”…
wherever it begins, where it only begins to take on biological substance—
and I would point out that if there is anywhere one might begin to grasp the meaning of this,
it is rather on the side of bacteria…
the world of difference between this and what is at stake in what Freud articulates concerning the relations that the unconscious reveals.

Regardless of the missteps he himself may have succumbed to in this domain,
what Freud reveals about the functioning of the unconscious has nothing biological about it.
It has the right to be called sexuality only by virtue of what is called the sexual relation.

This is entirely legitimate, moreover—up until the moment one starts using “sexuality” to designate something else,
namely what is studied in biology, namely the chromosome and its XY or XX combination,
where XX, XY have absolutely nothing to do with what is at stake here, which has a perfectly expressible name:
it is called the relations between man and woman.

It is necessary to start from these two terms in their full sense,
with all that they entail in terms of relation.
Because it is quite strange—when one sees the timid little attempts people make to think within the framework of a certain apparatus,
which is that of the psychoanalytic institution—they realize that not everything is resolved by the clashes we are presented with as conflicts…
and they would very much like something else: the non-conflictual, because that is restful…
and then, for instance, they come to realize this: that one does not wait at all for the phallic phase
to distinguish a little girl from a little boy—they are not at all the same.
And they marvel at it!

So, I point this out to you because by the time I see you again…
which will be only in February, on the second Wednesday of February…
you may have time to read something.
For once that I recommend a book, it will boost its circulation.
It is called Sex and Gender… and Gender… it is in English, pardon me, it is by someone named Stoller.

It is very interesting to read from two perspectives.
First, because it provides, on an important subject—that of transsexualism—a number of well-observed cases with their familial correlates.
You may know that transsexualism consists very precisely in a highly energetic desire
to switch to the other sex by any means necessary, even to the point of undergoing surgery, when one is on the male side. That’s it!

This transsexualism, with the coordinates and observations given there,
you will certainly learn many things from it, because these are entirely usable observations.
You will also learn this: the complete…
the completely ineffective nature of the dialectical apparatus
with which the author of this book treats these questions,
and which results in the very greatest difficulties he encounters in explaining these cases emerging quite plainly.

One of the most surprising things is that the psychotic dimension of these cases is completely elided by him,
for lack, of course, of any reference point—the Lacanian foreclosure has never reached his ears,
which immediately and very easily explains the form these cases take. But what does it matter!

The important point is this:
to speak of gender identity, which is nothing other than what I have just expressed under the term man and woman,
it is clear that the question of what arises precociously from this
only emerges on the basis of the following:

– that in adulthood, it is the fate of speaking beings to be distributed between men and women,
and that to understand the emphasis placed on these things, on this instance,
one must recognize that what defines “man” is his relation to “woman,” and vice versa,

– that nothing allows us, in these definitions of man and woman,
to abstract them from the complete experience of speech,
including and up to the institutions in which they are expressed—namely, marriage.

If one does not understand that, in adulthood, it is a matter of becoming-man, that this is what constitutes the relation to the other party,
that it is in light of this, by starting from what constitutes a fundamental relation,
that everything in the child’s behavior that could be interpreted as oriented toward this becoming-man, for instance, is questioned,
and that one of the essential correlates of this becoming-man is signaling to the girl that one is indeed a man,
then we find ourselves, from the outset, placed within the dimension of the semblant—but just as well…
everything attests to it, including the commonly referenced examples that are scattered everywhere…
in sexual display among higher mammals primarily, but also in a very, very large number of instances
that we can observe much farther down the animal phylum, demonstrating the essential nature,
in the sexual relation, of something that must be strictly limited to the level at which we encounter it,
something that has nothing to do with a cellular level, chromosomal or not, nor with an organic level,
whether or not it concerns the ambiguity of any particular tract related to the gonad—
namely, an ethological level, which is precisely that of a semblant.

It is insofar as the male…
most often the male—the female is not absent from it,
since she is precisely the subject affected by this display…
it is insofar as there is display that something called sexual copulation occurs, no doubt, in its function,
but it finds its status in particular elements of identity.
It is certain that human sexual behavior finds easy reference in this display as defined at the animal level.

It is certain that human sexual behavior consists in a certain maintenance of this animal semblant.
The only thing that differentiates it is that this semblant is conveyed through discourse,
and that it is at this level of discourse…
at this level of discourse only…
that it is carried toward—allow me to say—some effect that would not be of the semblant.
This means that instead of having the exquisite animal courtesy,
it happens that men rape a woman, or vice versa.

At the limits of discourse, insofar as it strives to sustain the same semblant,
there is, from time to time, something real:
this is what is called acting out—I see no better place to designate what this means.
Observe that in most cases, acting out is carefully avoided.

It only happens accidentally,
and this, too, is an opportunity to clarify the distinction I have long made between acting out and passage à l’acte.
Acting out consists in bringing the semblant onto the stage, elevating it to the level of theatricality, making it an example—
this is what, in this order, is called acting out. It is also called passion.

But…
here, I am forced to move quickly…
you will notice that it is precisely in relation to this…
and in light of the way I have just clarified things…
that we can sharply identify, precisely designate what I have always said:
that if discourse is there insofar as it allows for the stakes of surplus-jouissance to be played out,
namely…
and I am putting everything on the table here…
this is precisely what is forbidden in sexual discourse.
There is no sexual act—I have already expressed this multiple times,
and I am addressing it here from a different angle.

And this is made quite evident by the economy—yet massive—of analytic theory,
namely, by what Freud encountered—he, first and foremost, and so innocently, if I may say so,
that in this, he is a symptom—that is, he advances things to the point where they concern us,
on the plane of truth.

The myth of Oedipus: who does not see that it is necessary to designate the real,
for that is precisely what it claims to do?
Or more exactly, what the theorist is reduced to when formulating this hyper-myth—
that the real, properly speaking, is incarnated…

– in what? In sexual jouissance,
– as what? As the impossible,

since what Oedipus designates is the mythical being whose jouissance…
whose jouissance would be that—of what?—of all women.

That such an apparatus is, in some sense, imposed by discourse itself—
is this not the most certain confirmation of what I have been stating theoretically,
regarding the prevalence of discourse in everything that pertains precisely to jouissance?

What analytic theory articulates is something whose graspable character as an object
is what I designate as the objet petit a,
insofar as, through a certain number of favorable organic contingencies,
it comes to occupy—breast, excrement, gaze, or voice—the place defined as that of surplus-jouissance.

And what does theory state, if not this:
that something tends toward this relation of surplus-jouissance…
a relation in whose name the function of the mother
becomes so overwhelmingly prevalent in all our analytic observation…
surplus-jouissance is normalized only by a relation established to sexual jouissance,
except that this jouissance, this sexual jouissance,
can be formulated and articulated only through the phallus, insofar as it is its signifier.

The phallus…
someone once wrote this: that it would be the signifier that designates the lack of a signifier.
That is absurd—I have never articulated such a thing.
The phallus is, very precisely, sexual jouissance insofar as it is coordinated with, bound to, a semblant.

That is exactly what happens, and it is rather strange to see all analysts striving to look away from it.
Far from insisting ever more on this turning point, this crisis of the phallic phase,
they will seize upon anything to evade it:
the crisis, the truth that every single one of these young speaking beings must face—
which is that there are some who do not have it.

A double intrusion of lack:
– because “there are some who do not have it,”
– and because, up until now, this truth was missing.

Sexual identification does not consist in believing oneself to be a man or a woman,
but in taking into account:
– that there are women, for the boy,
– that there are men, for the girl.

And what matters is not even so much what they feel; it is a real situation—allow me to say—
– that for men, the girl is the phallus, and that is what castrates them,
– that for women, the boy is the same: the phallus, and that is what castrates them too,
because they acquire only a penis, and that is a failure.

The boy and the girl, at first, run no risk except for the dramas they set in motion:
for a moment, they are the phallus.

This is the real—the real of sexual jouissance,
insofar as it is set apart as such: it is the phallus,
in other words, the Name-of-the-Father.
The identification of these two terms once scandalized some pious souls.

But there is something worth insisting on a little further.

What is the foundational role, then, in this operation of semblant…
such as we have just defined it at the level of the man-woman relation,
what is the place of the semblant, of the archaic semblant?

This is certainly why it is worthwhile to linger a little longer on what the figure of woman represents.
The woman is precisely—in this relation, in this rapport—for the man, the hour of truth.
The woman is in a position, with respect to sexual jouissance,
to punctuate the equivalence between jouissance and the semblant.
And it is precisely in this that lies the distance at which the man finds himself from her.

If I spoke of the “hour of truth,”
it is because this is what all of man’s formation is built to respond to,
by upholding, against all odds, the status of his semblant.
It is certainly easier for a man to face any enemy on the plane of rivalry
than to face the woman,
insofar as she is the bearer of this truth—
of what, in the relation of man to woman, is semblant.

In truth, the fact that the semblant here is jouissance for the man
sufficiently indicates that jouissance itself is semblant.
It is because he is at the intersection of these two jouissances
that man undergoes, to the maximum, the malaise of what is designated as the sexual relation.
As the saying goes: “these pleasures that are called physical.”

On the other hand, no one other than the woman—
for it is in this that she is the Other—
no one other than the woman knows better what, in jouissance and in the semblant,
is disjunctive, because she is the presence of something she knows—
namely, that jouissance and semblant,
while equivalent within one dimension of discourse,
are nonetheless distinct in experience.

That is, the woman represents for the man truth—quite simply.
That is to say, she alone can give the semblant its proper place as such.

It must be said: everything that has been articulated to us as the driving force of the unconscious
represents nothing but the horror of this truth.
That, of course, is what today I am trying—I am attempting—to unfold for you,
like one unfolds Japanese flowers,
and which is perhaps not especially pleasant for everyone to hear.
It is what is usually neatly packaged under the heading of the castration complex.
And with that little label, one remains at ease,
one can set it aside,
and never speak of it again—except to acknowledge its existence with a polite little nod from time to time.

But that the woman is the truth of the man,
that this old proverbial phrase…
when it comes to understanding something, “cherchez la femme,”
which is naturally given a detective-like interpretation…
is something entirely different—
namely, that to grasp the truth of a man,
one would do well to know who his woman is.

I mean: his wife.
And on occasion, why not?

This is the only place where it makes sense—what someone in my circle once called the weighing scale.
To weigh a man, there is nothing like weighing his wife.
But when it comes to a woman, it’s not the same!
Because a woman has a very, very great freedom…

Louder!
What’s going on?
We can’t hear you!
You can’t hear?
No!

I said: a woman has a very great freedom when it comes to the semblant! [Laughter]
She can even give weight to a man who has none at all.

These are truths, of course, that have been perfectly well known for centuries,
but they are only ever transmitted from mouth to mouth, so to speak. [Laughter]

And an entire literature has been written, it exists—it would be a matter of grasping its breadth.
Naturally, it is only of interest if one selects the best of it.
One writer, for instance, whom someone should one day take up, is Baltasar Gracián,
who was an eminent Jesuit and wrote some of the most intelligent things one could possibly write.

Their intelligence is absolutely astonishing in that everything they concern—
namely, establishing what one might call the sanctity of man—
is summed up, in a word, by him…
summed up by what?—his book The Courtier…
in a word, colon: to be a saint.
This is the only instance in Western civilization
where the word saint has the same meaning as in Chinese: shénshèng 神聖.

Note this point, because this reference…
Since it is already quite late today, and I will not introduce it today,
this year I will provide you with a few small references to the origins of Chinese thought.

Be that as it may, I have realized something—
perhaps I am only Lacanian because I once studied Chinese.
By this, I mean that I now see, in rereading these texts that I had previously come across—
but stammered through, like a fool, with donkey’s ears—
that now, rereading them…
well, they are entirely in step with what I am saying.

I don’t know—I’ll give you an example:
In Mencius, one of the fundamental, canonical texts of Chinese thought,
there is a figure…
his disciple, actually, not him…
who begins to state things like this:

“What you do not find on the side of yán 言 —that is, ‘discourse’—do not seek on the side of your mind.”

Now, I translate mind here, but the word is xīn 心,
which actually means heart—
but what he was designating with xīn was indeed mind, Hegel’s Geist.
But of course, that would require a bit more development.

“And if you do not find it on the side of your mind, do not seek it on the side of your qì 氣.”*

That is, on the side of what the Jesuits translate, as best they can—
losing their breath a little—as sensitivity.

I only point out this stratification to show you the strict distinction between:
– what is articulated, what belongs to discourse,
– and what pertains to the mind, which is the essential.

If you have not already found it at the level of speech, it is hopeless—
do not try to look elsewhere, at the level of feelings.

Meng-Tzeu, Mencius, contradicts him—it is a fact—
but the question is by what means and why.

All of this is to say that, in a certain way, placing discourse absolutely in the foreground
is not something that takes us back to archaisms at all.
Because discourse, at that time, in the time of Mencius,
was already perfectly articulated and fully constituted.
It is not through references to primitive thought that one can understand it.

In truth, I do not know what primitive thought is.
Something much more concrete, something within our reach, is what we call underdevelopment.
But underdevelopment—that is not archaic.
Everyone knows that it is produced by the expansion of the capitalist order.
I would even go further: what we are beginning to realize, and what will become increasingly evident,
is that underdevelopment is precisely the condition for capitalist progress.
From a certain perspective, even the October Revolution itself is proof of this.

But what must be understood is that what we are facing is an underdevelopment
that will become increasingly evident, increasingly widespread.

Ultimately, what is at stake is that we put this to the test:
whether the key to the various problems that will present themselves to us
is not to place ourselves at the level of this effect of capitalist articulation—
the one I left in the shadows last year,
giving you only its root within the discourse of the Master.
Perhaps this year, I can offer a bit more.

It would be fitting… we must see what we can draw from what I would call a logic of underdevelopment.
This is what I am attempting to articulate before you—
as the Chinese texts say, “for your best use.”