To resume again...

Lacan's Later Teaching
J
ACQUES-ALAIN
MILLER

The Scene of Two
A
LAIN BADIOU

The Proofs of
Interpretation
G
RACIELA BRODSKY

Polaroid Diary
M
ANU BURGHART

The State of
Emergency
Called Love
S
LAVOJ ZIZEK

Ethics and
the Theatre
F
RANÇOIS REGNAULT

Television
B
ENOÎT JACQUOT

Via S. Zaccaria 4
R
APHAEL RUBINSTEIN

Gary Hill
C
ATHY LEBOWITZ
interviews
JOSEFINA AYERZA

George Condo
C
ATHY LEBOWITZ
interviews
JOSEFINA AYERZA

 


























        

Ethics and the Theatre


François Regnault

translated by Barbara P. Fulks and Jorge Jauregui

1. "On him who ate the book and the mystery within it, one can, in effect, ask the question: 'Is he good or is he bad?' That question now seems unimportant. The important thing is not knowing whether man is good or bad in the beginning; the important thing is what will transpire once the book has been eaten."
Thus ends Seminar VII, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, in which the question of the theatre, the subject of my present contribution, is addressed in particular.

2. But contribute to what? To the question inappropriately posed today apropos Lacan: is he good or is he bad? (Which goes as far as the moronic: must one hate him? Because hate, for want of love, might actually be recommended; it is also, like love, a rallying cry). Which proves that Lacan's book is far from being eaten! That the desire to fully convey his teaching is far from being realized! We would only expect from those whom Lacan watches to tell us some of what they have eaten: "Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey" (The Revelation to John 10:9).

3. "Those whom Lacan watches." Exactly — it's an axiom. We are not the ones who, with a stuck-up air, make a point of a passé thought, when it's he himself who still "watches" us. Oh! Every dead body doesn't look at us, the axiom is only that there are some dead bodies, not all, who watch us. A thesis according to which one receives the message in an inverted form: we think we are delivering to the world "the Lacan" we bear on us, in us, under us, as a warning to the youth, or to honest folks, or to the foolish, and, if we're unlucky, it is a teaching in which, as he used to say, "everything is weighed," that automatically takes the measure of the surveyors.



[...]

* Magazine Littéraire, Paris, 1993


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