Hello Lacanian curious folks,

I'm Neil Gorman, and this is Lacanian Mojo (one of two email newsletters I send out with some semblance of regularity). Until now, I've sent out LM one time per month, but during the month of March, I'm going to try to send out LM three times.

The format will be shorter editions of LM (I'm thinking no more than 500 words). The content that I'll focus on is a reading of Lacan's Seminar XX: Encore: On Feminine Sexuality - The Limits of Love & Knowledge.

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• This seminar took place during the 1972-73 years.
• I will be using the Norton edition, which is edited by Jacques-Alain Miller, and translated and annotated by Bruce Fink.
• (Though from time to time, I may make some limited use of the Cormac Gallagher translations.)
• Seminar XX is a challenging seminar to read and attempt to understand, but I'm going to give it my best shot.

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When I say "I'll give it my best shot," what I mean is that what I'm presenting here is not the reading. It is a reading. (And it is probably a misreading...) My reading will be what reading Seminar XX makes me think. I hope that my reading will be interesting or useful to those of you who read this.

Having said all this, let's get started.

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Session I: On Jouissance pp. 1-2

The first chapter of the seminar is 13 pages long. In this edition of LM, I will focus on the first section of the text, which is only pages 1-2.

There are two points I want to focus on in the first bit of text, which is only two pages.

There are two points I want to focus on.

First, “I don’t want to know anything about it.”

Very early on in the seminar (bottom of the first paragraph), Lacan states:

I realized that what constituted my course [my teaching] was a sort of “I don’t want to know anything about it (p. 1).”

This brings to my mind that the English translations of Freud’s work are where we see the terms id, ego, and superego. Those terms are not present in the original German. The names Freud used were

• das Es (the it)
• das Ech (the I, or identity)
• Über-Ich (the Over I, or super-identity) or
• Ideal-Ich (the ideal I, the ideal identity)

I want to focus on da Es, the it. As in, the it that might be what Lacan is referring to when he says, “I don’t want to know anything about it.” Or the it that comes over you whenever you say, “I don’t know what came over me.”

To my way of thinking, this it (das Es) could also be referred to as the part of us that has a mind (i.e., desires) of its own. Another term for this part of us would be the unconscious.

So, to put it succinctly, When Lacan is saying there is something in our lives, and we “don’t want to know anything about it.” I think he refers to what Freud called das Es (the it, or the id), or the unconscious. He is talking about the wild part of us that is (1) part of us, part of our mind-body, that (2) has a mind of its own.

A little bit later, Lacan goes on to say:

What has worked in my favor for a while is that there is also on your part, in the great mass of you who are here, an “I don’t want to know anything about it.” But - the all important question - is it the same one? I don’t think so… (p. 1)

I think that Lacan indicates that he has an unconscious -part of himself that he does not want to know anything about- and that every member of his audience does as well. However, the unconscious thing Lacan does not wish to know anything about is different than the unconscious something that the members of his audience don’t want to know anything about.

Second, We are all analysands first

So why is Lacan’s “I don’t want to know anything about it.” different from the thing that his audience does not want to know anything about?

This is interesting! Before I explain what I think about this I’m going to need to quote from the text.

it is precisely because you suppose that I begin from a different place than you in this “I don’t want to know anything about it” that you find yourselves attached (lies) to me (p. 1).

Here Lacan is making something apparent: The audience sees Lacan as the analyst, as the one who knows. They expect him to teach them about something they don’t know. Lacan then goes on to say,

Such that, while it is true that with respect to you I can only be here in the position of an analysand due to my “I don’t want to know anything about it,” it’ll be quite some time before you reach the same point (p. 1).

Get this,

• For the audience, Lacan is the analyst, the one who knows what they don’t know, the one who can teach them something,
• For Lacan, the situation is reversed! Lacan sees himself as an analysand, and doing (i.e., teaching) his seminar is where he tries to talk and work out something he does not know and does not want to know anything about.

The audience is thinking, “Lacan will teach us what we need to know.” And Lacan is thinking, “I don’t know anything, and I’ll show them that lack.”

This brings up a fundamental truth about psychoanalysis: To be an analyst, one must first be an analysand.

Fin

OK, that is all I got for now. I hope you dug it.

(It was more words that I expected it would be.)

-N

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