“Kant with Sade”[1], by Jacques Lacan.

 

Original painting by Stefano Frassetto[2].

 

 

The unconscious Freud opened does conceive ‘memory’ rather than ‘imagination’[3] : here it is the most interesting conclusion Lacan offers to Freud and maybe hinge of his own analytical resumption, as the conscience has been built on thinking representations, instead of being a constituent of human nature, and the ‘object’ itself being built[4] and not set up.

“Kant with Sade” was published seven years after the “Seminar on ‘The stolen letter’” where Jacques Lacan was noting that maybe, as Freud did put forward, a ‘repetition automatism’ could be present, in which – still by Lacan – the language would bring in the possibility of subtraction[5] up to the betraying of memory[6].

Any not allowed discomfort of a betrayed memory does open to the disease[7] and Lacan can well assert : “You are well in evil or, if you like, the eternal feminine cannot draw upward…”[8], where ‘feminine’ is not ‘female’ and the despising sound does beat the hearing though written, so burying any individual difference beginning to sexes[9].

Just a simple subtraction to our memory – in the very accounting terms, other than economical – is then a real lie, or better a ‘slander’[10] – says Lacan – towards our own memory, maybe not yet distinguished or singled out : but that opens to a generalized untruthful thinking, as ‘de Sade’ can propose ‘a republic’ where ‘the slander’ is rising to virtue. On the other hand, can we ask naive peple for making a judgement ?

“Let us limit ourselves to come back, just to assert his prospect, to the theory by which de Sade has established the kingdom of his own principle. The one of human rights. That is : no one man, due to the sole fact he cannot at all be property, or prerogative of another man or woman, could therefore demand to suspend the right of anyone to enjoy himself – or herself - each one to his own, or her, liking.”[11]

“(Kant’s – editor’s note) moral law is not then representing the desire when, not the subject but the object  fails ?”[12]

“It emerges that sadic people deny the life of people themselves.“[13]

A memory betrayed, lost his or her own sense of direction, can go mad : so that is asking for a pilot, even if outside and unrelated. And here it is the overturning by ‘de Sade’, which Kant theory made practicable indeed, turning at that point[14].

“…Non bisogna dire piuttosto che il sadico rigetta nell’Altro il dolore di esistere, ma senza vedere che per questa via egli si muta in un ‘oggetto eterno’… ?”[15]  

“In Sade we can see a test, crucial in our eyes, when he rejects the death penalty… Sade then stopped here, just where the desire link with the (individual – editor’s note) law… The apology of crime only pushes him to confess just sideways the Law. The Supreme Being has been re-established in the Evil”.[16] So what ?

But here Lacan lets that any imprudent reader can venture among the brambles of a deadly research, going away – even dizzily but as he himself, or she herself likes – from that ‘fundamental link from memory to (individual – editor’s note) law’ which the ‘removal’ denies, and denies.

 

                                Marina Bilotta Membretti, Cernusco sul Naviglio - February 12, 2021

 

[1] “This writing had to serve as a preface to ‘La Philosophie dans le boudoir’. It has been appearing in the magazine ‘Critique’ (n.191, April 1963), like a report of the edition of works by Sade to whom was addressed. Ed. du Cercle du Livre Précieux, 1963, 15 voll”, in “Kant con Sade” p.764 in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. 1974 e 2002, ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’. Titolo originale : ‘Écrits’ (1966) ‘Éditions du Seuil’, Paris.

 

[2] Stefano Frassetto is born in Turin in 1968. After his degree in Architecture at ‘Politecnico’ he begun as graphic novelist for local magazines. In the ‘90s he edited in France, on ‘Le Réverbère’ and on ‘Libération’ : then he created ‘Ippo’ for ‘Il Giornalino’ and then the stripe ‘35MQ’ for the swiss magazine ‘20 Minuti’. In 2000 he came into ‘La Stampa’ newspaper as portraitist for cultural page and the insert ‘Tuttolibri’, then for the weekly ‘Origami’. Today he works also for the swiss magazine ‘Le Temps’.

[3] “The repetition automatism (Wiederholungszwang) – notwithstanding its notion in that work is addressed to meet a few paradoxes in the clinic, like the dreams in the traumatic neurosis or the negative therapeutic reaction – couldn’t be conceived as an addition, even crowning, the whole doctrinal building. Here it is Freud inaugural discovery : that is a conceiving memory envolving one’s own unconscious.”, p.42 “Il Seminario su ‘La lettera rubata’” in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.I, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974 e 2002).

 

[4] “Some voice phenomena, particularly those ones in psychosis, have precisely this aspect of the ‘object’…” p.772 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

 

[5] “We can see here again (in ‘Critica alla Ragion pratica’ di Kant – editor’s note) what can lead Kant to express regret that no intuition can offer a phenomenal object to the experience of the moral law. We agree that along all the ‘Critica’ this object does escape. But you can hit it in the trace left by the relentless coherence Kant is using in demonstrating its escaping…”, p.767 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

 

[6] “…A structure, even if still transparent to its data, shows then the fundamental link of memory with (individua - editor’s note) law”, p.45 “Il Seminario su ‘La lettera rubata’” in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.I, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

 

[7] “ ‘La Filosofia nel boudoir’ (‘Marchese de Sade’ – editor’s note) arrives eight years after the ‘Critica della ragion pratica’ (Immanuel Kant – editor’s note)… We can say that the vigour of factum comes from the saying proposing its  rule to the jouissance, unusual in terms of law in the habit of Kant, as that is asking itself as a rule. Let us state the saying : ‘I’ve the right to enjoy your body, anyone can tell me, and that right I’ll exercise without any limit can stop me in the caprice of the collections I can have the pleasure of satisfying’. Here it is the rule to which they pretend to submit everyone will, as little as a society can make it effective with their restrictions…”, p.765 - 768 in “Kant con Sade”, ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

 

[8] p.765 and a little further, p.788 “…the work never offers to us the success of a seduction where its spectre could as well find a crowning : the one (seduction – editor’s note) to which the victim… would agree with his/her torturer, or would enlist on his/her side due to a burst in the approval.”in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

 

[9] ‘La questione economica del masochismo’, S.Freud (1924) OSF Bollati Boringhieri (2012) Vol.10 p.7-8 : “I’ve named it ‘feminine’ even if many of its elements defers to childhood life…”

 

[10] “From Sade’s point of view you are anyway on the same side, good and bad; the insults couldn’t change anything… You need a firm heart to follow Sade when he extols slander, first article of the morality to be established in his republic”, p.788 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

 

[11] p.770 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

 

[12] p.781 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

 

[13] p.778 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

 

[14] “If Freud could assert ‘his’ principle of pleasure without even caring to outline what distinguishes it from its function in the tradizional ethics, … echoing to the undisputed prejudice of two millennia, to remember the appeal prearrangingthe creature to his/her benefit with psychology which enrols itself in a few myths of indulgence, we can only be grateful to the slipping rising, through the XIX century, of the item of ‘happiness in evil’. Here Sade is the inaugural step of an overturning of which, strange as it may seem if we compare it to the coldness of the man, Kant is the turning point and, as far as we know, never identified before.”, p.764-765 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

 

[15] p.778 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

 

[16] p.790 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).