Category Archives: Jouissance

We hebben allemaal onze ‘verdorven’ seksuele fantasieën

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Ariane Bazan

Hoogleraar klinische psychologie en psychopathologie (ULB en Université de Lorraine) en columniste van deze krant.

We hebben allemaal onze ‘verdorven’ seksuele fantasieën

Zaterdag 2 juli 2022 om 3.25 uur

Om seksueel ­geweld in te perken, moeten we ­inzien dat iedereen ‘schan­dalige’ ­noden heeft, schrijft Ariane Bazan.

In het West-Vlaamse Veldegem werd vorige week een kinderarts aangehouden voor voyeurisme en het bezit van kinderporno. In Frankrijk worden twee ministers, Gérald Darmanin en Damien Abad, beschuldigd van seksueel geweld en vorige week kwam aan het licht dat er ook tegen de Franse staatssecretaris Chrysoula Zacharopoulou een klacht loopt wegens verkrachting en seksueel geweld in het kader van haar werk als gynaecologe.

Seksueel geweld is een universele constante: het is van alle tijden, komt voor in alle lagen van de bevolking en vrouwen, kinderen noch mannen blijven gespaard. De daders zijn het vaakst mannen, al kunnen moeders hun (jonge) kinderen soms ook aan verregaande handelingen onder­werpen. Zo vertelde een gezondheids­werker dat een jonge moeder ­opschrok toen ze het verbod kreeg om nog langer fellatio bij haar zoontje toe te passen om hem in slaap te krijgen.

Hulp verlenen aan slachtoffers van seksueel geweld is moeilijker dan je denkt. Zolang een slachtoffer duidelijk in die rol zit en blijft, zijn we empathisch en steunend. Maar als mensen opnieuw een eigen leven gaan leiden en soms – vaak door hun gewelddadig verhaal – verleidingsgedrag of manipulatief gedrag vertonen, kunnen we dat moeilijk verdragen. De omgeving, ook in instellingsverband, is niet ­altijd zuinig op termen als psycho­pathie of perversie, en dat stigma leidt tot uitsluiting. Ook zien we dat jonge slachtoffers die tijdens een zorg­verblijf een eigen seksueel leven ontwikkelen, met masturbatoire of seksuele praktijken, soms op onbegrip en terechtwijzing botsen. Zo kan activisme jegens seksueel geweld overhellen naar hygiënisme, stigmatisering en intolerantie. Dat is jammer, want precies die mechanismen isoleren mensen met hun moeilijke seksuele driften, wat de deur kan openzetten naar seksueel grensoverschrijdend gedrag in de sociale ruimte.

Seksueel geweld is moeilijk ­uitroeibaar, precies omdat het zich als een hydra kan gedragen: snijd je er de kop van af, dan groeien er twee koppen terug. Activisme is niet voldoende en, zonder voorafgaand denkwerk, schadelijk. Zo pleit ik voor een ander uitgangspunt. Transgressie, de neiging om je medemens ook als (seksueel) nutsvoorwerp te behandelen, is eigen aan de menselijke conditie. Je krijgt die neiging niet uitgeroeid tenzij je tot bijzonder zwaar geweld ­bereid bent. We kunnen beter proberen transgressieve neigingen te beheren, binnen een kader met beperkingen, dan te proberen ze uit te roeien.

Dat klinkt makkelijker dan het is. Het idee dat tot orgasme leidt, het ­zogenaamde fantasma, is in de kern bij iedereen transgressief. Porno­grafische labels brengen dat goed in kaart: van exhibitionisme en voyeurisme, sadisme en masochisme tot, bijvoorbeeld, vuiligheid, bestialiteit, pis- en kakseks. Het fantasma kan diep schokkend zijn, ook voor de persoon zelf die er opgewonden door raakt. Niet zelden staat iemands fantasma haaks op zijn sociale of bewuste waarden. Het klassieke voorbeeld zijn masochistische neigingen bij mensen die succesvolle machts­posities bekleden, terwijl mensen in zorgberoepen vaker over sadistische fantasma’s vertellen. Toch zegt het fantasma op zich haast nooit iets over het gevaar op seksueel geweld: bij moeilijkere fantasma’s gebruiken mensen duizend omwegen en uitvindingen om respectvol tot orgasme te komen, van masturbatie tot instemmende volwassen partners, over gadgets en vunzig taalgebruik.

Maar niet iedereen vindt de weg tot een vrije seksualiteit, en een moreel ­rigide omgeving en hygiënistische voorschriften verhinderen die zoektocht. Dat is jammer, want wie intiem tot ontspanning komt, zal in de sociale ruimte niet tot wandaad overgaan, en bovendien ook veel minder de neiging hebben om anderen voor de ­eigen fantasmatische kar te spannen. Zo denk ik dat bij ‘ruziestokers’ of ­sociaal onderdanige mensen soms onbewust een overeenkomend ­fantasma leeft, dat misschien niet sterk in de intieme sfeer tot ontlading kan komen.

Beheer van seksueel geweld betekent daarom de openheid om minzaam met de eigen fantasieën om te gaan, en ze in het beste geval ook tot ontspanning brengen, zij het exclusief in een intieme context met zichzelf of met bijdrage van instemmende volwassenen. Maar het houdt ook in dat we aanvaarden dat anderen analoge ‘schandalige’ noden hebben, zonder hen te veroordelen of te stigma­tiseren. Zo verplicht onze menselijke conditie ons niet alleen verregaand de maat te nemen van de soms diep schokkende kern die ons drijft, maar er zowel voor anderen als voor onszelf liefde voor te hebben.

Liefde op maat van het verschil

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Liefde op maat van het verschil.

Donderdag 17 februari 2022 om 3.25 uur

‘Het eerste wat hij doet als hij van het werk thuiskomt, is mijn borsten vastnemen. Hij doet het zonder na te denken, als een vanzelfsprekende begroeting. Veel mensen begrijpen niet wat ons bindt, maar dat is het antwoord. Hij neemt mijn borsten vast, en ik kom tot rust, ik weet dat ik er mag zijn, dat het leven goed is.’

Ik had maar één gesprek met deze vrouw, halverwege de 40, bedrijfsleidster van een middelgrote onderneming en sinds een drietal jaren ­samen met veel jongere dakwerker van Oost-Europese origine. Het is haar eerste vaste verhouding en haar omgeving is argwanend. Heel anders dan zijzelf staat haar partner zonder ambitie in het leven. Maar na een aarzelend begin is de verhouding ­gegroeid en intens hecht geworden. Elke avond liggen ze lepeltje-lepeltje in bed, en hij vertelt over zijn dag, zijn ­belevingen en zijn verwachtingen.

Als ik die middag naar huis wandel, moet ik aan mijn ­ouders denken. Mijn moeder, een Vlaamse met Brugse wortels, in Machelen ­geboren uit een Vlaams-nationalistisch gezin en mijn vader, een Brusselse ket van Spaans-Algerijnse origine met anarchistische, communistische, soms zelfs anti-Vlaamse ideeën. Toch waren ze hun hele leven lang verliefd. Mijn moeder wilde dat we naar een Nederlandstalige school gingen en dat was voor mijn vader nooit een twistpunt. Een jaar voor hij stierf, zag ik ze op hun terras in de Dordogne zitten, naast elkaar, rustig. Het raam stond open en zo ving ik deze zin op: ‘Je suis heureux avec toi.’

Liefde past niet zoals deksels op potjes, zoals kleren die je als gegoten zitten. Je komt niet op een mooie dag de liefde tegen, in de vorm van een zielsverwante die het leven voor jou in petto heeft. Mensen ­haken toevallig op elkaar in – en niet zelden is de eerste ontmoeting een seksuele beroering – waarna ze vaak nogal verbaasd zijn elkaar samen te treffen. De ander is allesbehalve de ­gedroomde match, de op de eigen maat ingebeelde evenknie, maar een onthutsende vreemde, met andere waarden en verwachtingen, soms zelfs andere ijkpunten of een andere taal. Liefde op maat van het verschil, denk ik nu.

In de huidige emancipatiestrijden worden we soms zeeziek van de vermenging tussen identiteit en diversiteit. Groepen scharen zich rond identiteiten om discriminatie aan te klagen en te ijveren voor inclusiviteit in een diverse samenleving. We vormen groepjes van hetzelfde om het recht op verschil op te eisen.

Zulke ­geclaimde identiteiten vergen bovendien waterdichte afscheidingen. Een vrouw kan dan de beleving van een man niet verwoorden, een witte niet die van een zwarte, een rijke niet die van een arme, ik niet die van jou. Misschien is dat zo, wie zal het zeggen. Maar in de liefdesverhalen die ik in mijn praktijk hoor, is het ­precies de kloof die de liefde kansen geeft. Wanneer we onszelf niet herkennen in de ander, kan empathie of zelfliefde tekortschieten. De rest van de weg moeten we dan wel ‘over hebben voor elkaar’ en wellicht is pas die onbaatzuchtige liefde werkelijke liefde.

Net zoals het verschil de motor is van de liefde, is de onmogelijkheid van de verwoording de motor van het schrijven, en de onpeilbare afstand tussen menselijke ­belevingen de motor van de cultuur. Al wat ooit gecreëerd werd, put uit die pijn van de kloof en uit het verlangen om bij de ander te komen. Toch komt de koestering van het verschil pas in tweede instantie, zowel in het leven als in de geschiedenis.

In het verhaal van de mensheid was zoveel arbitrair en onberecht geweld dat we nog vele emancipatorische gevechten in het verschiet hebben, en dat we ons in die gevechten ook onder vaandels scharen die nooit helemaal de onze zijn. Wat we niet hadden voorzien en ook niet konden voorzien, is dat pas op de valavond van zo’n strijd een andere figuur kan verschijnen. Het is pas als de vlag mag opgeplooid worden dat we elkaar misschien ontmoeten, heel verbaasd elkaar daar te treffen. Want geen twee mensen zijn zo verschillend als zij die eerst dachten ‘hetzelfde’ te zijn. En als we het voor elkaar over hebben, pas dan kan ons liefdesverhaal beginnen.

Médée – ce qu’Euripide nous dit sur notre actualité

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Médée, Euripide – Théâtre en Liberté, au Théâtre de la place des Martyrs

Souviens-tois que je suis Médée, c’est le titre que donne Isabelle Stengers à son texte sur Médée (Empêcheurs de penser en rond, 1993). J’étais invitée à débattre de la pièce qui se joue actuellement au Théâtre de la place des Martyrs par la troupe du Théâtre en Liberté, débat avec entre autre aussi Lambros Couloubaritsis, mon collègue en philosophie à l’ULB et Daniel Scahaise, le metteur en scène. Texte intemporel et universel s’il en est, rendu avec beaucoup de respect pour Euripide par les acteurs de la troupe. J’aimerais reprendre les deux points que j’ai proposés dans le débat de cet après-midi.

D’abord, la question de la barbarie. Médée est une “barbare”, ce qui veut dire qu’elle provient d’un  ailleurs qui ne connaît pas “les bienfaits de la civilisation grecque”, ce pays lointain de Colchide. Elle est aussi descendante des Titans, alors que la civilisation Grecque, personnifiée en son mari Jason, est fondatrice des lois, de la cité et de l’ordre moral que Zeus a pu faire régner du fait de sa victoire sur les Titans. Médée s’inscrit dans cette citée, dans ce nouvel ordre moral, dans sa vie conjugale avec Jason, à qui elle donne des enfants. Or, l’histoire est connue: Jason la répudie pour pouvoir se marier avec la fille de Créon, le roi de  Corinthe. Cette répudiation, que Stengers décrit comme “la plus grande humiliation que puisse connaître une femme”, provoque la panique au sens du Dieu Pan, maître de la “panique”: “D’un seul coup, tout bascule comme si ce qui faisait lien entre les humains se révélait soudain susceptible de faire émerger un collectif tout autre, d’engendrer ce que l’ordre social semblait, par nature, exclure” écrit Stengers en faisant référence à Jean-Pierre Dupuy (La panique, 1991). La répudiation signifie la rupture du contrat moral: “Elle a passé contrat avec l’humanité et le contrat a été rompu” (p. 11). De quoi s’agit-il, quel est le “contrat avec l’humanité”? Je propose que dans les termes les plus généraux et les plus fondamentaux, le contrat moral ou social est le suivant: en échange de l’amour, je suis prêt à abandonner (un peu de) ma jouissance. Que cela veut-il dire? Faire naître l’infans à l’humanité, au sein de la famille, c’est interférer dans la jouissance absolue, immédiate et totale de ce que l’enfant a ou aspire à avoir avec sa première ou sa principale figure d’attachement, en y mettant des limites: ces limites sont frustrantes par rapport au tout auquel l’enfant se croit attitré, mais sont dans le même mouvement l’opportunité d’une ouverture: l’intérêt porté jusque là exclusivement sur la mère, perd l’exclusive pour se porter en partie aussi sur la figure intervenante. De “qui suis-je pour ma mère?”, la question devient “qu’a-t-il celui-là pour pouvoir me faire concurrence, pour capter l’intérêt de ma mère?”, en d’autres termes, l’enfant s’intéresse au tiers intervenant: il accepte de quitter son monde d’absolu pour s’ouvrir à la tiercité, c’est-à-dire au lien social et à ses règles. Mais quitter ce paradis de l’espérance d’un assouvissement total ne se fait pas sans douleur: l’enfant doit être bercé d’amour et  tendrement séduit à ce renoncement. Pas tous les enfants, d’ailleurs, feront le pas (et ce serait alors, la voie de la psychose). Voilà le premier pacte social: en retour de l’amour (et de la sécurité), le sujet humain abandonne (en grande partie) son monde fantasmatique jouissif et accepte “le principe de réalité”. C’est aussi le pacte moral de ce qui fait lien (entre les hommes, dans la cité): la cité (la civilisation) prend soin de ces citoyens, les traite avec respect, considération, soin et équité, et en retour les sujets qui la composent ne s’autorisent pas à “lâcher le monstre intérieur, la barbarie intérieure”. Car le monde jouissif est un monde qui ne s’embarrasse pas de pitié ni de considération pour la vie: il faut prendre ce qui assouvit et éliminer ce qui l’en empêche. Ce qui se joue pour Médée comme pour l’actualité est donc ceci: sans amour et sans espoir d’amour (d’intégration, de valorisation, de prise en charge), le contrat social est considéré rompu, et “ce qui faisait lien entre les humains se révélait soudain susceptible de faire émerger un collectif tout autre, d’engendrer ce que l’ordre social semblait, par nature, exclure”, c’est-à-dire, la barbarie.

Il y a un deuxième point que j’aimerais soulever, celui de ce que le texte nous apprend sur les rapports homme-femme. Lacan a pu dire qu’une femme peut être pour un homme un symptôme alors qu’un homme peut être un véritable ravage pour une femme. C’est aussi ce que ma clinique semble, jusque là, m’enseigner. Médée, par excellence, rend tangible le ravage que peut être la répudiation du partenaire, rend tangible ce qu’est la répudiation de Jason pour Médée. Médée, par son infanticide, donne la mesure de ce à quoi elle a à faire. Comment le comprendre et comment comprendre cette phrase de Lacan? Le pacte du couple a une logique sur certains points ressemblant au pacte social: la jouissance est mise en jeu en échange de l’amour. L’idée fondamentale est que, pour ce qui est de la jouissance intime, il n’y a pas symétrie entre homme et femme: tant l’homme que la femme, jouissent du corps de la femme, c’est-à-dire que c’est la femme qui doit être séduite à se faire objet, à se prêter à ce jeu, pour qu’il puisse y avoir jouissance. Elle n’est pas victime car elle aussi en jouit, et qu’elle est, par ailleurs, protégée par le pacte, c’est-à-dire par le lien, par l’amour souvent. Cependant, quand il y a rupture du pacte, l’asymétrie se fait jour dans sa monstruosité: l’homme peut continuer le chemin, attristé, effondré, solitaire; or la femme ne se retrouve pas simplement esseulée, abandonnée, dépossédée, mais dans la mesure où elle a consenti à se faire objet, elle se retrouve seule à faire avec cette position extrêmement délicate et potentiellement mortifère de son statut d’objet. Elle avait consenti à cet exercice d’équilibre périlleux pour sa santé psychique car séduite par l’amour; or sans les balises de l’amour, elle se retrouve seule face au gouffre vertigineux de sa jouissance. Voilà donc pourquoi on peut parler de l’abandon comme de “la plus grande humiliation que puisse connaître une femme”, soit encore comme un ravage. Dans le mythe, Médée, séduite, a consenti à se faire utiliser: elle a consenti à abandonner son pays, à trahir les siens, à tuer son frère par amour: Jason, en la répudiant, en la déshabillant de son amour, la livre décharnée à une hantise sans fin par cette vaine abnégation.

Or, de toutes les peines qu’un humain peut infliger à un autre humain, l’humiliation est la plus féconde de violences à venir. Le sujet humilié ne pourrait donner la mesure de la violence à laquelle il a à faire en attaquant l’autre, trop facile, trop bref, ni en s’attaquant lui-même, trop peu incisif pour les autres. Tuer Jason pour Médée ne pourrait lui donner satisfaction: une fois mort, il ne souffre déjà plus; se tuer n’est pas non plus une option: les quelques pleurs passés, tout serait oublié. Non, l’humiliation ne connait sa mesure que dans la destruction, la dévastation de la scène même où se joue cette humiliation, la scène de la cité, la scène de la vie. C’est pourquoi Médée tue ses enfants, qui sont aussi ceux de Jason. L’humilié(e) dit en substance: je suis déjà mort(e) (psychiquement), mais je ne partirai pas sans avoir fait le ravage autour de moi: je peux tout donner (donner tout mon corps) pour détruire la scène même de l’humiliation.

C’est aussi ce qu’Euripide nous apprend sur notre actualité.

Landschap met springwegen – Pieter De Buysser

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Wat kan ontsnappen aan het geschrevene, aan wat de geschiedenis voorschrijft? We staan niet enkel op de schouders van reuzen, zoals Thomas van Aquino, we moeten het ook met hun oude stof doen, met hun oude schriftrollen om een leven te schrijven, om de steeds dunnere doorgang te vinden tussen wat geschiedenis mogelijk maakt en wat die vooraf vastlegt, om aan de tijd een leven los te rukken dat misschien niet algeheel ontglipt,
Want als het stof van de vorige eeuw en haar allesverblindend enthousiasme voor bemeestering zal zijn gaan liggen – toen we even dachten dat de wereld van de mooie ideeën zou zegevieren in het triomf van de rede en van de wetenschap, en dat de goede wil van de groep zou zegevieren in zelfregulatie  (Let do and let pass, the world goes on by itself) – ook als we eventueel ontnuchterd zouden raken van die kale reis, dan nog blijft de verbijstering: welke revolutie, Pieter, welke revolutie, welke springweg bedenken uit wat enkel kan gemaakt worden van wat was?
Het geschiedene laat twee soorten sporen na. De eerste soort is die van de objecten. De erfenis verloopt over de dingen, de cultuurprodukten, de sedimenten die zich van ons lijfelijk bestaan hebben losgerukt en vanuit die autonomie doorwerken. In de wereld van de objecten staan, betekent onvermijdelijk dat we niet ontsnappen aan de waanzin van de magie die opereert vanuit die objecten, vanuit die opstapeling aan relikwieën. Het is gekheid, het is onrede, ongetwijfeld, maar het is nog steeds waanzin met een vorm, met een bespreekbare  want ‘uitwendige’ vorm. Taal werkt op dit niveau: de taalobjecten, de betekenaars, werken autonoom door. De tweede soort is die van het lijf. De erfenis verloopt over de lijfelijke inschrijving: het is de neiging tot transgressie. De geschiedenis raast door in het heimelijk vibrerende lijf van de man die zijn aandelen dankzij voorkennis op tijd kan verkopen, in het heimelijk vibrerende lijf van de vrouw die zich aan de drank overgeeft. Het drama hier is veel geweldiger, het is het drama van het noodlot: vaak is het pas als het einde onafwendbaar is, dat het volle besef komt dat het leven zich voorbij onszelf heeft afgespeeld, dat we het niet hebben bevat, dat het zich aan gene zijde heeft voltrokken… Deze waanzin is veel fundamenteler: het geledene heeft lijfelijke sporen geschreven, waarvan de vorm besloten ligt in het intieme van het singuliere genot. Het genot is zo de stomme razernij van de geschiedenis, dat wat in het lijf blijft woeden. Toch is het ook een vorm, en het is pas in de ontcijfering van die vorm dat de belofte van een springweg besloten ligt, maar die vorm heeft zich in het inwendige van de lichamelijke intimiteit ingeschreven en opereert stilzwijgend.
Zijn wij, mensen, dan veroordeeld, zoals Freuds’ demonische machine uit 1920 in Aan gene zijde van het lustprincipe? veroordeeld ons lijf tot strijdterrein voor onverleden oorlogen aan de geschiedenis uit te besteden, is onze levensadem veroordeeld tot verkankering?
Het orakel van Thebe bleek onafwendbaar voor Oedipus, en toch is een geslacht gesticht. Beschaving is de enige heil, maar daartoe moet het lijf zich eerst tot taal laten verleiden – daartoe moest het incestueuze genot zich eerst tot wet, tot stichtend verbod laten schrijven.
Dat is de onmogelijke taak die de jongen Zoltan – of is het zijn paard Abas? – op zich neemt. Want er is maar één manier om het genot van het lijf tot taal te verleiden, om woorden te ontfutselen aan de heimelijke vibrering van het weefsel binnenin. En die manier is: onbewogen, rotsvaste, gulle liefde, liefde zo groot en zo warm als een paardelijf, het paardelijf waaronder Francesca en Zoltan schuilen – en hun liefde, die Francesca even aan de tijd ontrukt.

“Lanschap met springwegen” is het schitterende nieuwe stuk van Pieter De Buysser. Het is een feest voor de geest. Het haalt je triomferend uit elk nakende ontmoediging over de toestand van de wereld, uit elke neiging tot hopeloosheid. Iets is mogelijk!

 

 

Modernité, scientificité et liens transférentiels: des oxymores ? A propos d’une physiologie du transfert

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A propos d’une physiologie du transfert
Argument du Colloque à la Ramée le 18 mars 2013

Jamais de l’histoire de l’humanité, le dévoilement de l’humain par la biologie n’a été aussi poussé qu’en ce XXIè siècle naissant. L’illusion biologique qui s’est saisie de nous les 20 dernières années a dissipé les restes psychanalytiques pour penser l’humain. Qui, de nos jours oserait se réclamer de Sophocle, par exemple, pour comprendre la condition humaine?
Cette modernité, qui écrase le psychique tel une fine pellicule entre le corps et la société, a un effet massif d’objectivation et de victimisation. Il est aujourd’hui impossible de penser le sujet autrement qu’en termes de paramètres biologiques ou sociologiques: si ce n’est le corps, alors ça doit être l’éducation, la famille, le contexte, la société etc. Tant les discours de la médecine que les discours de contestation sociale se retrouvent en ceci être d’improbables complices d’un même mécanisme enjoignant à la victimisation. S’en suit que ces « victimes » réclament des compensations, des droits et guettent les accusations ou les coupables possibles et qu’elles ne peuvent se penser coupables, sans que cette culpabilité soit vécue comme une revictimisation. Je propose que ceci soit aussi dû à une véritable impossibilité de penser, notamment l’impossible conceptualisation du psychique.
Or, nous avons des raisons de nous réjouir: les avancées neurobiologiques – en particulier les images du cerveau au travail – sont en train de précipiter, ce que j’oserai appeler « un troisième temps pour la psychologie ». Le premier temps, nous l’avons vécu au XVIè siècle quand une révolution d’une ampleur également fracassante a révolutionné l’idée de l’humain: les dessins anatomiques montrent pour la première fois le corps ouvert et son incroyable révélation. En effet, son mouvement pourrait bien se laisser expliquer mécaniquement par la beauté des emboîtements logiques des muscles et des nerfs qui les contrôlent. Si ce n’est plus l’âme – l’anima d’Aristote – qui agite le corps, une anthropologie nouvelle, qui redéfinit cette âme s’impose. Et ce sont quelques réformateurs qui fondent cette nouvelle anthropologia au XVIe en la découpant en science du corps, anatomia, et pour la première fois sous ce signifiant, en science de l’âme, psychologia. Le nom de ‘psychologie’ émerge donc de la nécessité de penser l’âme en réponse au menaçant dévoilement de l’humain par la biologie.
Je propose donc que la neuro-imagerie actuelle, du fait même de son extrême dévoilement, va structurellement acculer la psychologie à son heure de vérité. En poussant à bout ce que la biologie peut contribuer au saisissement de l’humain, va, cependant, également éclater au grand jour l’étendue de son impuissance. En effet, nous voyons d’ores et déjà comment les sciences neurophysiologiques en viennent progressivement à déclarer forfait en matière de santé mentale: malgré les sommes et les moyens mentaux colossaux investis dans la recherche depuis 60 ans – depuis l’avènement de psychotropes – nous allons probablement devoir renoncer au vieux rêve de Charcot ou de Bayle: il n’y a finalement pas de réels marqueurs biologiques pour les maladies mentales – ni lésion cérébrale, ni gène – et il n’y a pas non plus de réels médicaments pour la plupart d’entre elles qui ont un effet au-delà d’un effet palliatif.
Ce qui est en marche est de l’ordre du fondement par l’absurde d’un nécessaire concept du psychique à part entière. La (neuro-)physiologie n’aide pas à penser le transfert, mais elle étaye, par son insuffisance, la nécessité de penser le transfert en termes psychiques. Et c’est là que le propos se renverse: c’est en effet ce qui du transfert (ou du psychique, ou de la maladie mentale) pourra aider à penser la physiologie qui pourra donner consistance à un véritable appareil psychique avec une architecture propre. Ce renversement est porteur d’un grand espoir éthique: que le sujet puisse y trouver un fondement pour se penser auteur de ce qui lui arrive et qu’il puisse s’inviter à répondre même de ce qu’il ne contrôle pas. Il s’agit d’une possibilité de se penser coupable et de penser cet aveu de culpabilité comme salutaire, c’est-à-dire, comme ce qui peut le sauver de la trame mortifère de la répétition, au lieu de l’y précipiter.
Que faut-il donc retenir du transfert dont le corps doit rendre compte? Dans la présentation deux dimensions cliniques de toute relation transférentielle sont retenues: l’irrationnel et le transgressif. Nous nous attarderons en particulier sur le transgressif qui est compris comme le prix à payer d’une dynamique nécessaire à l’ajustement du corps extérieur au corps intérieur. C’est alors l’acte adéquat – qui s’inscrit comme l’acte jouissif – qui permet de relier les deux corps, au prix d’une insistance constitutionnelle (et transgressive) à la répétition.

Bazan, A. & Detandt, S. (2013). On the physiology of jouissance: interpreting the mesolimbic dopaminergic reward functions from a psychoanalytic perspective. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00709

La Ramée Fond'Roy 18032013

Essays in love, Alain de Botton (1993)

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15.01.2012

See my comments to some striking excerpts:

  • p. 68-69: “There is usually a Marxist moment in most relationships [the moment when it becomes clear that love is reciprocated] and the way it is resolved depends on the balance between self-love and self-hatred. If self-hatred gains the upper hand, then the one who has received love will declare that the beloved [on some excuse or other] is not good enough for them [not good enough by virtue of association with no-goods]. But if self-love gains the upper hand, both partners may accept that seeing their love reciprocated is not proof of how low the beloved is, but of how lovable they have themselves turned out to be.”
  •  p. 99: “Beauty was to be found in the area of oscillation between ugliness and classical perfection. A face that launches a thousand ships is not always architecturally formal: it can be as unstable as an object that is spinning between two colours and that gives rise to a third shade so long as it is moving. There is a certain tyranny about perfection, a certain exhaustion about it even, something that denies the viewer a role in its creation and that asserts itself with all the dogmatism of an unambiguous statement. True beauty cannot be measured because it is fluctuating, it has only a few angles from which it may be seen, and then not in all lights and at all times. It flirts dangerously with ugliness, it takes risks with itself, it does not side comfortably with mathematical rules of proportion, it draws its appeal from precisely those areas that will also lend themselves to ugliness. Beauty may need to take a calculated risk with ugliness.”
  •  p. 152-154: “1. Language flatters our indecisions with its stability. It allows us to hide under an illusory permanence and fixity while the world changes minute by minute. ‘No man steps into the same river twice’, said Heraclitus, pointing to the inevitable flux yet ignoring the fact that if the word for river does not change, then in an important sense, it is the same river we appear to have stepped into. I was a man in love with a woman, but how much of the mobility and inconstancy of my emotions could such words hope to carry? Was there room in them for all the infidelity, boredom, irritation, and indifference that often found themselves knitted together with this love? Could any words hope to accurately reflect the degree of ambivalence to which my emotions seemed fated? 2. I call myself a name, and the name stays with me throughout my life – the ‘I’ that I see in a picture of myself at the age of six and that I will perhaps see in a picture of myself at sixty will both be framed by the same letters, though time will have altered me almost unrecognizably. I call a tree a tree, though throughout the year, the tree changes. To rename the tree at every season would be too confusing, so language settles on the continuity, forgetting that in one season there are leaves that in another will be absent. 3. We hence proceed by abbreviation, we take the dominant feature [of a tree, of an emotional state] and label as the whole something that is only a part. Similarly, the story we tell of an event remains a segment of the totality the moment comprised; as soon as the moment is narrated, it loses its multiplicity and ambivalence in the name of abstracted meaning and authorial intent. The story embodies the poverty of the remembered moment.

Ari: This is what Freud calls the ‘primary process’, or probably what Lacan calls the ‘Imaginary’. During a psychoanalytic session it is often an ‘easy’  (but nonetheless important) intervention of the analyst to pay attention to these moments when the analysand uses this kind of ellipses or labels and to invite him or her to deconstruct the ellipses ‘back’ to the complexity of the experiences.

  • Chloe and I lived a love story stretching over an expanse of time during which my feelings moved so far across the emotional scale that to talk of being simply in love seems a brutal foreshortening of events. Pressed for time and eager to simplify, we are forced to narrate and remember things by ellipsis, or we would be overwhelmed by both our ambivalence and our instability. The present becomes degraded, first into history, then into nostalgia. […]

Ari: ‘psychotics’ have another position in language, language functions differently in the total mental system, and indeed ‘they’ are more easily “overwhelmed by both ambivalence and instability”.

  • 5. Perhaps we can forgive language its hypocrisy because it enables us to recall a weekend in Bath with one word, pleasant, hence creating a manageable order and identity. Yet at times one is brought face to face with the flux beneath the word, the water flowing beneath Heraclitus’ river – and one longs for the simplicity things assume when letters are the only guardians of their borders. I loved Chloe – how easy it sounds, like someone saying they love apple juice or Marcel Proust. And yet how much more complex the reality was, so complex that I struggle against saying anything conclusive of any one moment, for to say one thing is automatically to miss out on another – every assertions symbolizing the repression of a thousand counter-assertions.“

see Bazan, A. (2012). From sensorimotor inhibition to Freudian repression. Frontiers in Psychology.

  •  p. 161: [We could perhaps define maturity – that ever-elusive goal – as the ability to give everyone what they deserve when they deserve it, to separate the emotions that belong and should be restricted to oneself from those that should at once be expressed to their initiators, rather than passed on to later and more innocent arrivals.]
  •  p. 194: “At the basis of all sulks lies a wrong that might have been addressed and disappeared at once, but that instead is taken by the injured partner and stored for later and more painful detonation. Delays in explanation give grievances a weight that they would lack if the matter had been addressed as soon as it had arisen. To display anger shortly after an offense occurs is the most generous thing one may do, for it saves the sulked from the burgeoning of guilt and the need to talk the sulker down from his or her battlement.”

Ari: This is major point both in life and in analysis: the ability to display anger and finding ways (forms) to do so. And very rightly so, it is a token of respect, and even of love, to ‘give’ the ‘honor’ of one’s anger to the other: it signals the fact that the other one is considered having the ability to receive the anger and it gives him or her the chance to reply. It is often more violent, both for oneself and for the other, to keep the anger for oneself. In fact, it is not seldom a sign of a far greater aggressiveness than would be the anger displayed. Only displayed anger opens a way to something beyond anger. Now, of course, not all situations are the same and there are inherent situational limits to displaying anger which one has to take into account.

  • p. 174: ,”The strength of the accusations we made, their sheer implausibility, showed that we argued not because we hated one another, but because we loved one another too much – or, to risk confusing things, because we hated loving one another to the extent we did. Our accusations were loaded with a complicated subtext, I hate you, because I love you. It amounted to a fundamental protest, I hate having no choice but to risk loving you like this. The pleasures of depending on someone pale next to the paralysing fears that such dependence involves. Our occasionally fierce and somewhat inexplicable arguments during our trip through Valencia were nothing but a necessary release of tension that came from realizing that each one had placed all their eggs in the other’s basket – and was helpless to aim for more sound household management.”
  •  p. 213: “I was labouring under the curse of fate, not an external one, but a  psycho-face: a fate from within. 6. In an age of science, psychoanalysis provided names for my demons. Though itself a science, it retained the dynamic [if not the substance] of superstition, the belief that the majority of life unfolds without adherence to rational control. In the stories of manias and unconscious motivations, compulsions and visitations, I recognized the world of Zeus and his colleagues, the Mediterranean transported to late-nineteenth-century Vienna, a secularized, sanitized view of much of the same picture. Completing the revolution of Galileo and Darwin, Freud returned man to the initial humbleness of the Greek forefathers, the acted-upon rather than the actors. The Freudian world was made of double-sided coins one of whose sides we could never see, a world where hate could hide great love and great love hate, where a man might try to love a woman, but unconsciously be doing everything to drive her into another’s arms. From within a scientific field that had for so long made the case for free will, Freud presented a return to a form of psychic determinism. It was an ironic twist to the history of science, Freudians questioned the dominance of the thinking ‘I’ from within science itself. ‘I think, therefore I am,’ had metamorphosed into Lacan’s ‘I am not where I think, and I think where I am not.’.”
  •  p. 217: “11. The essence of a curse is that the person labouring under it cannot know of its existence. It is a secret code within the individual writing itself over a lifetime, but unable to find rational, preemptive articulation. Oedipus is warned by the Oracle that he will kill his father and marry his mother – but conscious warnings serve no purpose, they alert only the thinking ‘I’, they cannot defuse the coded curse. Oedipus is cast out from home in order to avoid the Oracle’s prediction, but ends up marrying Jocasta nevertheless: his story is told form him, not by him. He knows the possible outcome, he knows the dangers, yet can change nothing: the curse defies the will. 12. But what curse did I labour under? Nothing other than an inability to form happy relationships, the greatest misfortune known in modern society. Exiled from the shaded grove of love, I would be compelled to wander the earth till the day of my death, unable to shake of my compulsion to make those I loved flee from me. I sought a name for this evil, and found it contained in the psychoanalytic description of repetition compulsion, defined as: ….an ungovernable process originating in the unconscious. As a result of its actions, the subject deliberately places himself in distressing situations, thereby repeating an old experience, but he does not recall this prototype; on the contrary, he has the strong impression that the situation is fully determine by the circumstances of the moment. (The Language of Psychoanalysis, J. Laplanche, J.B. Pontalis, Karnac Books, 1988). 13. The comforting aspect of psychoanalysis [if one can talk so optimistically] is the meaningful world it suggests we live in. No philosophy is further from the thought that it is all a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing [even to deny meaning is meaningful]. Yet the meaning is never light: the psycho-fatalist’s spell subtly replaced the words and then with the words In order that, thereby identifying a paralysing causal link. I did not simply love Chloe and then she left me. I loved Chloe in order that, she leave me. The painful tale of loving her appeared as a palimpsest, beneath which another story had been written. Buried deep in the unconscious, a pattern had been forged, in the early months ors years. The baby had driven away the mother, or the mother had left the baby, and now baby/man recreated the same scenario, different actors but the same plot, Chloe fitting into the clothes worn by another. Why had I even chosen her? It was not the shape of her smile or the liveliness of her mind. It was because the unconscious, the casting director of the inner drama, recognized in her a suitable character to fill the role in the mother/infant script, someone who would oblige the playwright by leaving the stage at just the right time with the requisite wreckage and pain. 14. Unlike the curses of the Greek gods, psycho-fatalism at least held out the promise it could be escaped. Where the id was, ego might be – if only ego had not been so crushed by pain, bruised, bleeding, punctured, unable to plan the day let alone the life.

 Ari: The compulsion to repeat is of course another major point of psychoanalysis. It is close to Lacan’s concept of ‘jouissance’. I will come back to it.

Of human bondage, William Somerset Maugham, 1915

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06/26.05.2012

“Of human bondage” is first and foremost a book about jouissance, jouissance in the Lacanian sense. How it shapes human nature, but is seldom spoken about or discussed in any great work of philosophy. How it takes over one’s life, or threatens to. How you can’t fight it, not by any means of will or reason. But how you learn to do with it, with time and with damage, but with perspective nevertheless.

  • p. 127-128: “It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the ruthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy, for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all hey have been told are lies, lies, lies (…). The strange thing is that each one who has gone through that bitter disillusionment adds to it in his turn, unconsciously, by the power within him which is stronger than himself.”
  • p. 228: “The illusion which man has that his will is free is so deeply rooted that I am ready to accept it. I act as though I were a free agent. But when an action is performed it is clear that all forces of the universe from all eternity conspired to cause it, and nothing I could do  could have prevented it. It was inevitable. If it was good I can claim no merit; if it was bad I can accept no censure.”

voir Freud à propos du bonheur “Tout l’ordre de l’univers si oppose” (Malaise dans la civilisation)

Freud (1929: 20) dans Malaise dans la Civilisation[1]: « L’univers entier – le macrocosme aussi bien que le microcosme – cherche querelle à son programme [celui du principe du plaisir]. Celui-ci est absolument irréalisable; tout l’ordre de l’univers s’y oppose; on serait tenté de dire qu’il n’est point entré dans le plan de la « création » que l’homme soit heureux. ».

 

[1] Freud, S. (1929/1970). Malaise dans la Civilisation. traduction de Ch. et I. Odier, Revue Française de Psychanalyse, Tome XXXIV, PUF : 9-80.

"As we see, it is simply the pleasure-principle which draws up the programme of life’’s purpose. This
principle dominates the operation of the mental apparatus from the very beginning; there can be no doubt
about its efficiency, and yet its programme is in conflict with the whole world, with the macrocosm as much
as with the microcosm. It simply cannot be put into execution, the whole constitution of things runs counter
to it; one might say the intention that man should be happy is not included in the scheme of Creation. What
is called happiness in its narrowest sense comes from the satisfaction——most often instantaneous——of pent-up
needs which have reached great intensity, and by its very nature can only be a transitory experience. When
any condition desired by the pleasure-principle is protracted, it results in a feeling only of mild comfort; we
are so constituted that we can only intensely enjoy contrasts, much less intensely states in themselves"

Freud, S.(1929/2000-2005). Civilization and its discontents, Chrysoma Associates Limited.
  • p. 245:”(…) he felt himself a fool not to have seen she was attractive. He thought he detected in her a touch of contempt for him, because he had not had the sense to see she was there (…)”
  •  p. 261:”They danced furiously. They danced round the room, slowly, talking very little, with all their attention given to the dance. The room was hot, and their faces shone with sweat. It seemed to Philip that they had throw off the guard which people wear on their expression, the homage to convention, and he saw them now as they really were, some were foxy and some were wolflike; and other had the long, foolish face of sheep. Their skins were sallow from the unhealthy life they led and the poor food they ate. Their  features were blunted by mean interests, and their little eyes were shifty and cunning. There was nothing of nobility in their bearing, and you felt that for all of them life was a long succession of petty concerns and sordid thoughts. The air was heavy with the musty smell of humanity. But they danced furiously as though impelled by some strange power within them, and it seemed to Philip that they were driven forward by a rage for enjoyment. They were seeking desperately to escape from a world of horror. The desire for pleasure which Cronshaw said was the only motive of human action urged them blindly on, and the very vehemence of the desire seemed to rob it of all pleasure. They were hurried by a great wind, helplessly, they knew not why and they know not whither. Fate seemed to tower above them, and they danced as though everlasting darkness were beneath their feet. Their silence was vaguely alarming. It was as if life terrified them and robbed them of power of speech so that the shriek which was in their hearts died at their throats. Their eyes were haggard and grim; and notwithstanding the beastly lust that disfigured them, and the meanness of their faces, and the cruelty, notwithstanding the stupidness which was worst of all, the anguish of those fixed eyes made all that crowd terrible and pathetic.”
  •  p. 265: “It seemed to Philip […] that in the true painters, writers, musicians there was a power which drove them to such complete absorption in their work as to make it inevitable for them to subordinate life to art. Succumbing to an influence they never realized, they were merely dupes of the instinct that possessed them, and life slipped through their fingers unlived.”
  •  p. 306: “He had thought of love as a rapture which seized one so that all the world seemed spring-like, he had looked forward to an ecstatic happiness; but this was not happiness; it was a hunger of the soul, it was painful yearning, it was a bitter anguish, he had never known before”
  •  p. 314: “He could not tell why he loved her. He had read of the idealization that takes place in love, but he saw her exactly as she was. She was not amusing or clever, her mind was common; she had a vulgar shrewdness. […] Philip laughed savagely as he thought of her gentility […] she could not bear a coarse word […] and she scented indecency everywhere […] she thought it slightly indelicate to blow her nose and did it in a deprecating way. She was dreadfully anemic and suffered from the dyspepsia which accompanied that ailing. Philip was repelled by her flat breast and narrow hips, and he hated the vulgar way in which she did her hair. He loathed and despised himself for loving her. The fact remained that he was helpless. He felt just as he had felt sometimes in the hands of a bigger boy at school. He had struggled against the superior strength till his own strength was gone, and he was rendered quite powerless – he remembered the peculiar languor he had felt in his limbs, almost as though he were paralysed – so that he could not help himself at all. He might have been dead. He felt just that same weakness now. He loved the woman so that he knew he had never loved before. He did not mind her faults of person or of character, he thought he loved them too: at all events they meant nothing to him. It did no seem himself that was concerned; he felt that he had been seized by some strange force that moved him against his will, contrary to his interests; and because he had a passion for freedom he hated the chains which bound him. He laughed at himself when he thought how often he had longed to experience the overwhelming passion. He cursed himself because he had given way to it.[…] The whole thing was his own fault. Except for his ridiculous vanity he would never have troubled himself with that ill-mannered slut.”
  •  p. 316-317: (as he is trying to take distance from his humiliating love for Mildred) “One thing that struck him was how little under those circumstances it mattered what one thought; the system of personal philosophy, which had given him great satisfaction to devise, had not served him. He was puzzled by this. (…) His instinct was not to go near the hospital for a week, when the affair would be no more thought of, but, because he hated so much to go just then, he went: he wanted to inflict suffering upon himself. He forgot for the moment his maxim of life to follow his inclinations with due regard for the policeman round the corner; or, if he acted in accordance with it, there must have been some strange morbidity in his nature which made him take a grim pleasure in self-torture.”
  •  p. 328: “It’s not much fun to be in love with a girl who has no imagination and no sense of humor,’ he thought, as he listened [to her].
  •  p. 330: “Though he yearned for Mildred so madly he despised her. He thought to himself that there could be no greater torture in the world than at the same time to love and to contemn.”
  •  p. 332: “He foresaw what Mildred, with her genteel ideas and her mean mind, would become: it was impossible for him to marry her. But he decided only with his reason; he felt that he must have her whatever happened; and if he could not get her without marrying her he would do that; the future could look after itself. It might end in disaster; he did not care. When he got hold of an idea it obsessed him, he could think of nothing else, and he had a more than common power to persuade himself of the reasonableness of what he wished to do. He found himself overthrowing all the sensible arguments which had occurred to him against marriage. Each day he found that he was more passionately devoted to her; and his unsatisfied love become angry and resentful.” (…)

Philip: “You will marry me, won’t you?”

Mildred: “D’you think we should be happy?”

Philip: “No. But what does that matter?”

  •  p. 356-358: “He had long come to the conclusion that nothing amused him more than metaphysics, but he was not sure of their efficacy in the affairs of life. The neat little system which he had formed as a result of his meditations at Blackstable had not been of conspicuous use during his infatuation with Mildred. He could not be positive that reason was much of help in the conduct of life. It seemed to him that life lived itself. He remembered very vividly the violence of emotion which had possessed him and his inability, as if he were tied down to the ground with ropes, to react against it. He read many wise things in books, but he could only judge from his own experience (…); he did not calculate the pros and cons of an action, the benefits which must befall him if he did it, the harm which might result from the omission; but his whole being was urged on irresistibly. (…) The power that possessed him seemed to have nothing to do with reason; all that reason did was to point out the methods of obtaining what his whole soul was striving for.

Macalister reminded him of the Categorical Imperative:

“Act so that every action of yours should be capable of becoming  a universal rule of action for all men.”

“That seems to me perfect nonsense (…) It suggests that one choose one’s course by an effort of will. And it suggests that reason is the surest guide. (…)”

“You seem to be a contented slave of your passions.”

“A slave because I can’t help myself, but not a contented one,” laughed Philip.

  • While he spoke he thought of that hot madness which had driven him in pursuit of Mildred. He remembered how he had chafed against it and how he had felt the degradation of it. (…) When he was under the influence of passion he had felt a singular vigour, and his mind had worked with unwonted force. He was more alive, there was an excitement in sheer being, an eager vehemence of soul, which made life now a trifle dull. For all the misery he had endured there was a compensation in that sens of rushing, overwhelming existence. (…) “Well, I can’t say anything about other people. I can only speak for myself. The illusion of free will is so strong in my mind that I can’t get away from it, but I believe it is only an illusion. But it is an illusion which is one of the strongest motives om my actions. Before I do anything I feel that I  have choice, and that influences what I do, but afterward, when the thing is done, I believe it was inevitable from all eternity.”
  •  p. 372: “If he had any sense he would stick to Norah, she would make him much happier than he would ever be with Mildred; after all she loved him, and Mildred was only grateful for his help. But when all was said the important thing was to love rather than to be loved; and he yearned for Mildred with his whole soul. He would sooner have ten minutes with her than a whole afternoon with Norah, he prized one kiss of her cold lips more than all Norah could give him. “I can’t help myself,” he thought, “I’ve just got her in my bones.” He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other.”
  •  p. 403: “I wonder what it is I see in you,” he smiled. “That’s a nice thing to say,” she answered. Her body was so thin that one could almost see her skeleton. Her chest was as flat as a boy’s. Her mouth, with its narrow pale lips, was ugly, and her skin was faintly green.”
  • p. 424: “He did not know what it was that passed from a man to a woman, from a woman to a man, and made one of them a slave: it was convenient to call it the sexual instinct; but if it was no more than that, he did not understand why it should occasion so vehement an attraction to one person rather than another. It was irresistible: the mind could not battle with it; friendship, gratitude, interest, had no power beside it. Because he had not attracted Mildred sexually, nothing that he did had any effect upon her. The idea revolted him; it made human nature beastly; and he felt suddenly that the hearts of men were full of dark places.”
  •  p. 425: “She had a genteel refinement which shuddered at the facts of life, she looked upon the bodily functions as indecent, she had all sorts of euphemisms for common objects, she always chose an elaborate word as more becoming than a simple one: the brutality of these men was like a whip on her thin wide shoulders, and she shuddered with voluptuous pain.”
  •  p. 433: “It was not very comfortable to have the gift of being amused at one’s own absurdity.”
  •  p. 435: “It makes him feel rather wretched, you know.” “I can bear the trifling inconvenience that he feels with a good deal of fortitude.”, said Philip. “He’ll do anything he can to make it up.” “How childish and hysterical! Why should he care? I’m a very insignificant person, and he can do very well without my company.”
  • p. 485: “Philip had cultivated a certain disdain for idealism. He had always had a passion for life, and the idealism he had come across seemed to him for the most part a cowardly shrinking from it. The idealist withdrew himself, because he could not suffer the jostling of the human crowd; he had not the strength to fight and so called the battle vulgar; he was vain, and since his fellows would not take him at his own estimate, consoled himself with despising his fellows. For Philip this type was Hayward, fair, languid, too fat now and rather bald, still cherishing the remains of his good looks and still delicately proposing to do exquisite things in the uncertain future; and at the back of this were whisky and vulgar amours of the street. It was in reaction from what Hayward represented that Philip clamored for life as it stood; sordidness, vice, deformity, did not offed him; he declared that he wanted man in his nakedness; and he rubbed his hands when an instance came before him of meanness, cruelty, selfishness, or lust: that was the real thing. In Paris he had learned that there was neither ugliness nor beauty, but only truth: the search after beauty was sentimental. Had he not painted an advertisement of chocolat Menier in a landscape in order to escape from the tyranny of prettiness?  But here [the pictures of El Greco] he seemed to divine something new. He had been coming to it, all hesitating, for some time, but only now was conscious of the fact; he felt himself on the brink of a discovery. He felt vaguely that here was something better than the realism which he had adored; but certainly it was not the bloodless idealism which stepped aside from life in weakness; it was too strong; it was virile; it accepted life in all its vivacity, ugliness an beauty, squalor and heroism; it was realism still; but it was realism carried to some higher pitch, in which facts were transformed by the more vivid light in which they were seen. He seemed to see things more profoundly through the grave eyes of those dead noblemen of Castille; and the gestures of the saints, which at first had seemed wild and distorted, appeared to have some mysterious significance. But he could not tell what that significance was. It was like a message which it was very important to receive, but it was given him in an unknown tongue, and he could not understand. He was always seeking for a meaning in life, and here it seemed to him that a meaning was offered; but it was obscure and vague. He was profoundly troubled. He saw what looked like the truth by flashes of lightning on a dark, stormy night you might see a mountain range. He seemed to see that a man need not leave his life to chance, but that his will was powerful; he seemed to see that self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion; he seemed to see that the inward life might be as manifold, as varied, as rich with experience, as the life of one who conquered realms and explored unknown lands.”

 

  • p. 509: Toward the end of his second term as in-patient’s clerk,

a piece of good fortune befell Philip.

 

Ari: I think there are two occurrences of this little sentence ‘a piece of good fortune befell him’ in the book (I can’t find the other one) and they always go like that: ‘on this precise place and time’, ‘a (little) piece of good fortune befell him’, and it is something not that extraordinary at first sight (here, for example, it is when he first encounters someone who’ll become a close friend). But this little sentence, which would almost go unnoticed is, what saves Philip, what saves the book and what saves mankind: we are taken by jouissance, we are under the spell of some script which was written before and for us, but then not all is said and the play is not played before we have said our last word and before we have played the play till the end. Indeed, on some precise moment and on some precise place, unforeseen by the script, a little piece of good (or sometimes also bad) luck may befell us. This pertains also to Derrida’s difference between ‘futur’ and ‘avenir’ : the future is already written, the ‘avenir’ is what will fall upon us, unforeseen.

 

  •  p. 543: “Philip wondered what it was that made people do things which were so contrary to all their theories of life. (…) It looked as though men were puppets in the hands of an unknown force, which drove them to do this and that; and sometimes they used their reason to justify their actions; and when this was impossible they did the actions in despite of reason.”
  • p. 586: “Philip thought that in throwing over the desire for happiness he was casting aside the last of his illusions. His life had seemed horrible when it was measured by its happiness, but now he seemed to gather strength as he realized that it might be measured by something else. Happiness mattered as little as pain. They came in, both of them, as all the other details of his life came in, to the elaboration of the design. He seemed for an instant to stand above the accidents of his existence, and he felt that they could not affect him again as they had done before. Whatever happened to him now would be more motive to add to the complexity of the pattern, and when the end approached he would rejoice in its completion. It would become a work of art (…).”

Ari: Mind it, it is not happiness which people strive for. A human being can stand a huge amount of unhappiness and live just as well. But what is at stake in life, is that it might make sense, that it makes sense to live. No happiness can make up for sense, but sense can make up for quite some unhappiness. To go for happiness is to make the wrong bet. Voir aussi Romain Gary (La Vie devant soi, 1975): “Mais je tiens pas tellement à être heureux, je préfère encore la vie. Le bonheur, c’est une belle ordure et une peau de vache et il faudrait lui apprendre à vivre. On est pas du même bord, lui et moi, et j’ai rien à en foutre. J’ai encore jamais fait de politique parce que ça profite toujours à quelqu’un, mais le bonheur, il devrait y avoir des lois pour l’empêcher de faire le salaud. Je dis seulement comme je le pense et j’ai peut-être tort, mais c’est pas moi qui irais me piquer pour être heureux. “.

  • p. 599: “Phlip thought of the countless millions to whom life is no more than unending labor, neither beautiful nor ugly, but just to be accepted in the same spirit as one accepts the changes of the seasons. Fury seized him because it all seemed useless. He could not reconcile himself to the belief that life had no meaning and yet everything he saw, all his thoughts, added to the force of his conviction.But though fury seized him it was a joyful fury. Life was not so horrible if it was meaningless, and he faced it with a strange sense of power.”
  • p. 600: “A feeling of disgust surged up in him at the thought of seeing her again. He did not care if she was in distress, it served her right whatever it was; he thought of her with hatred, and the love he had had for her aroused his loathing. His recollections filled him with nausea, and as he walked across the Thames he drew himself aside in an instinctive withdrawal from his thought of her. He went to bed, but he could not sleep; he wondered what was the matter with her, and he could not get out of his head the fear that she was ill and hungry; she would not have written to him unless she was desperate. He was angry with himself for his weakness, but he knew that he would have no peace unless he saw her.”
  • p. 623: “He almost regretted the penury which he had suffered during the last two years, since the desperate struggle merely to keep body and soul together had deadened the pain of living. In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy daily bread: it was not a curse upon mankind, but the balm which reconciled it to existence. But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of the pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered was no more than part of a decoration which was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself strenuously that he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and excitement, pleasure and pain, because it added to the richness of the design.”.
  • p. 679: “It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.”