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Transcript of Houston Open Sky #2
HOUSTON OPEN SKY
Houston freudian field library
nel fibol member
# 2
1
The Houston Freudian Field Library publishes the Houston
Open Sky, a periodic bulletin, in English and Spanish, which
encourages the formation of Lacanian Cartels for those interested in
the Lacanian Orientation Analysis, the Teachings and Clinic Jacques
Lacan. Editor: Carmen Navarro-Nino.
Editorial Commitee HFFL. Adherent Fibol-Nel: Carmen Navarro-
Nino, Luis F Nino and Edgar V Marín.
Translation: Edgar V Marín,
English Texts revision: Luis F Nino
Spanish/English texts revision: Editorial Commitee HFFL,
Design of the “Houston Open Sky”: Edgar V Marín.
All texts revised and authorized by their authors.
2
Houston 12-19-2010
We express our gratitude to NEL Miami for supporting us at the
Houston Freudian Field Library with cartel’s work, also to Mr. Edgar
Marín and Mr. Luis F Nino for the English translation and revision of
works and to all those who one way or the other made contributions
to this publication.
As a welcoming invitation to people with traveling spirits in ancient
times, European farmers used to hang on their doors a “swag”, with
elegant simplicity, made of everlasting flower, pines, pine nuts, and
other natural limbs, many times embellished with a ribbon to tie every
one of the limbs that formed it. This was done for walkers to come in
and take shelter from the harshness of the cold winter wind.
The same way, the “Houston Freudian Field Library FIBOL-NEL”, as
a welcoming signal, hangs the virtual publication “Houston Open Sky”
on the web; this bulletin number two is the product of elaborations in
a Lacanian Cartel titled “Semblant” which concluded this year at the
beginning of the Summer. This publication invites, as an ancient
swag, to continue with cartel activities as a way to knot ourselves, the
good way, to this shelter which is the function of a Lacanian School
such as it was conceived by Jacques Lacan. In English, the word
“Swag” also means the back pack a walker in extreme lack carries
3
with his scarce belongings; an image in Norman Rockwell’s 1927 and
1958 works “Still Good” and “The Runaway” illustrates this with very
good humor.
We do Lacanian School in as much as we understand the metaphor
of the School as a shelter where we can work one by one. We can
join the activity at the device known as Cartel, Lacanian of course,
where each one of us finds a way to participate.
What is the activity we do in a Cartel? It is to research, to study and
above all to elaborate a product. The cartelizand, placed in a lacking
position, elaborates and expresses, little by little, the written
production to the Cartel colleagues and finally expounds it to the
open sky.
In this edition of the Houston Open Sky we present the works product
of the Cartel on Semblant that met in Houston during 2009-2010 with
an introduction by the “Plus One” Mercedes Negrón-Pérez.
It is essential to point out how important it is to continue working on
cartels, which are well known to be the device that propitiates School
activity, one that really works.
Quoting Jacques Lacan: “Cartel works, let’s just not put obstacles...”
4
Next, I invite you to read the interesting works product of this Cartel:
Marianela Bermúdez-Cuns: “Religion and Semblant”
Edgar V. Marín: “Semblant, Partenaire and Masculine position”
Carmen Navarro-Nino: “Being-Semblant”
Luis F. Nino: “Semblant, Formation and Knowledge”
Carmen Navarro-Nino (Editor, Houston Open Sky).
5
Introduction
Mercedes Negrón-Pérez (Plus One. Cartel, Semblant).
The presentation of the Cartel about Semblant, registered in
NEL Florida, was made in the city of Houston the 5th of July 2010. A
Cartel is a space for work transference on psychoanalysis with
people decided to work on it. This is an introduction by the “Plus One”
to the works of the four cartelizands. The “Plus One” is chosen by the
four cartelizands and its role is fundamental in supporting their works
when facing difficulties. The “Plus One” is a provoking agent to the
theoretical work and written production of each cartel member.
A Cartel on Semblant made inevitable the question about what
“Semblant” is in the Lacanian psychoanalytic context. Through this
cartel’s production some questions were answered and some other
arose as part of a typical rest of work in a Lacanian school.
Semblant is a response to treat with a Real; it comes to the place
where there is no structure. Thus, before castration, the subject
responds with the S1 signifier, and this will allow it to articulate to
other signifiers to humanize it. Lack at being is what permits
Semblant as “seeming to be” which in turn dominates being, e.g., with
questions like, what does the “other” want me in?
6
The members of this Cartel agreed upon what difficulties there are to
make semblant from any discourse. Religion occupies a place to give
answers and mandates to a subject regarding what is good orbad, it
could be said, Semblant of “good-saying” and of “bad- saying”. With
regard to education, teachers cannot always make a teacher’s
Semblant, but they should rather serve as agents to produce desire
to know in students.
My particular research on this cartel was about “Partenaire as
Semblant”. Each couple agrees on a particular way of “joyssance” as
a result of an unconscious negotiation. In this joyssance deal,
couples (in its symbolic version) are equivalent to the symptom
function, with a formal wrapping that inserts it in the social and
cultural order, from which it takes semblants sustained by word.
Semblants come to occupy the place of completeness impossibility
through couples, in other words just as J. Lacan stated: the “non
sexual relation”.
Couples could be considered a symptom made of the proper lack of
the “sexual relation”. Difficulty to make semblant in couples lies in that
this deficiency appoints the particular way of joyssance in subjects, in
relation to joyssance of the Other, Other who the neurotic brings to
existence. Also, it is how there are forms to make semblant in
couples depending upon what side they play on, whether the
feminine or masculine side. On the masculine side, it is assumed to
have the phallic object, so you have to be prudent not to take the risk
of losing it. On the feminine side, the lack of it is masked, so there is
nothing to lose, what allows some audacity and freedom where there
7
are no limits. The feminine metaphor is in the act of “being”, instead
of “not having” and on the masculine side it is in “having” which
prevents “being”.
Finally, these questions arise: What happens at the end of analysis?
How is the subject under analysis going to make an analyst’s
Semblant? Answers must be looked for from the analyst’s being of
desire that sustains the analytic act.
We express our gratitude to the Cartel members for their decided and
sustained work and, especially to Edgar Marin for the English
translation of the written works. We also thank the “Lone Star
College” for allowing us to use their academic facilities for our
meetings.
Next, we present the written production of each Cartel’s member.
8
RELIGION AND SEMBLANT
Marianela Bermúdez-Cuns
It was approximately a year ago when the Cartelizands met and
committed to work. Semblant from the perspective of lacanian
analysis was the selected subject. My particular interest was oriented
towards reflections over Religion and Semblant.
Difficulties encountered: From the very beginning I experienced some
sort of inhibition or blockage to think about both themes. Particularly
about religion, which so much as it resulted very attractive and
interesting, it wasn’t so easy to analyze from the psychoanalysis
view. Recently I had the opportunity to share this restlessness with
other cartelizands and could understand part of it. And, it is the fact
that talking about religion is talking about a great Other, one that goes
accompanied by signifiers related to sacred and spiritual world.
Altogether with this, the concept of Semblant has been one hard to
grasp for me. I think now that it has to do also with my own analysis
process.
First, what do we understand by Religion? We will use the definition
given by the “Real Academia Española de la Lengua”: “Set of beliefs
or dogmas regarding divinity, of feelings of veneration and fear
9
towards it, of moral norms for subjects and social conduct and of
ritualistic practices, mainly praying and sacrifice to worship.”
Religions do not respond to a uniform concept, for that reason it
results useful to present a categorization of common elements to
religions developed by the English author Ninian Smart, in his book
“The Religious Experience of Mankind” (Cited in Philip Wilkinson
(2008) New York, DK Publishing). Ninian points out to seven
elements:
Doctrine, Mythology, Religious Experience, Religious Institution, the
Ethics contents,the Rituals, the Objects and the Sacred places.
Religion is an ancient phenomenon in human history. In most known
civilizations, religious elements have been present. Most early
religions, polytheist in majority, sought by means of their gods an
explanation of nature functioning: Why day and night? What causes
natural phenomena like rain, seasons, illnesses? Moreover, religious
practices and rituals were most times oriented to obtain protection
from gods or to reduce their anger. We could say at this instance that
religions arise as a form of the first sketches of science, as a search
for knowledge about real and reality. This way, at their origins
religions appear as linked to a quest for knowledge.
The other element of my cartel subject is Semblant. This concept,
proposed by Jacques Lacan, holds a different meaning to the one we
use colloquially in language. From Lacan’s 18th Seminar “Over a
discourse that weren’t from Semblant” he asserts: “the effect of truth
isn’t Semblant . . . truth is correlative to Semblant . . . Semblant is
10
contrary to the artifact . . . Semblant is abundant in nature, example:
a flash of lightning”. Jacques-Alain Miller speaks of three Semblants:
The father, the phallus and the object “a” . . . Semblant reduces to a
border, a border of Semblant that situates the nucleus of Joyssance.
From J. Lacan, What reading can we do of religion from the angle of
the analytical discourse?
Religion and Discourses
Some religions fit within what Lacan called the Master’s Discourse.
Thus, religions in part seek to hide the subject’s division. In Judeo-
Christian and in Muslim religions, religious doctrine set forth a
submission of the faithful to God (See the meaning of ISLAM:
“Submission to God”). As a part of his faith the believer accepts to
occupy the position of slave in the religious discourse. Prove of this
are the rituals: prayers, communion, fasting, and confession.
The subject, before the experience of emptiness, seeks in religion a
discourse that soothes and calms down this emptiness. A distress
that arises as a result of living the unknown, death and lack at being.
In religion the subject finds answers to his questions about the origin
of the world, about what is after death and about the explanation of
suffering. Religious mythology gives a narcissist and imaginary
answer to questions about origin: humans would be made at God’s
image and resemblance, and regardless of sins they may aspire to a
state of perfection once freed from them (Heaven, Nirvana).
Some religions seek to regulate joyssance in subjects, through
11
ethical precepts. It is common to find, in sacred books or in oral
traditions, references to standard prohibitions and expected conduct
models. Prohibitions like: “not to kill, no to steal, not to commit
adultery and not to swear in vane” are repeated in diverse religious
doctrines.
However, these ethical and moral elements possess a double
reading. On one hand, prohibition (of sexuality and aggression) that
allows to organize culture and human societies in a different way from
animal groups. But on the other hand, severity of this prohibition
could entail generation of joyssance and strengthening of desire and
pulsion. Various religions share the requirement of abstinence among
their faithful and members of the congregation, abstinence of
accomplishment of desire in action or even abstinence at the thought
level.
Now, returning to the theme of Semblant, by means of analysis of
discourse. How are the elements of the master’s discourse present in
religion?
Religions, with their doctrines and institutions, represent the Agent of
Discourse: How does this agent present himself? Is it with a fierce
and implacable Semblant? (Think of the Catholic Inquisition).
Moreover, we can refer to some religious discourses, where the
Semblant of the agents results less severe in what concerns the
image of its guides. Religions like Buddhism and Confucianism don’t
possess in their doctrine an image of an almighty God. They talk
about “Masters” as guides in the way to self knowledge.
12
An interesting aspect of religion is in its relation with good-saying.
Majority of religions include some section regarding the importance of
not bad-saying (speak ill of, curse) while using language. This has
relation with Semblant and the subject’s position towards prudence
and good-saying.
Other questions: What happens to the faithful? What is the Semblant
of the religion the believer loves? How does he present himself
before the religion’s agent demand and discourse? As a slave, or as
a subject who can identify his desire? And what is his position with
respect to his religious life?
From the side of psychoanalysis, our interest is in knowing what
subjective position the subject places himself about religion when he
comes to analysis.
Is religion a symptom? And we think of the delirious psychotic with his
mystical-religious thematic.
Or, are we talking about the obsessive structure, with its obsessions
and compulsions associated with the aggression and sexuality
thematic on the one hand, or guilt and punishment on the other?
Or, are we before a hysterical structure, who tells us about her
mystical experiences, whether it is through visualizations or divine
calls?
There it is the analyst work, to listen every subject’s singularity.
After the end of analysis, what is the position of the analyst before
13
religion? It is well known that psychoanalysts like Freud defined
themselves as atheists. As a closing statement, I include the famous
comment of the Spanish film maker Luis Buñuel in his memories:
“Thank god, I am still an atheist”.
Bibliography
- Bassols, Miquel. Algunas Observaciones acerca del Semblante.
- Freud, Sigmund. Obras Completas. Moisés y la Religión
Monoteísta. Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva 1981.
- Lacan, Jacques. (2) Seminario 18: De un Discurso que no fuera del
Semblante. Paidos, Buenos Aires, 2009 .
- McDowell, M. and Brown, N. World Religions at your Fingertips.
New York, Alpha Books, 2009.
- Miller, Jacques-Alain. Curso de 1991-92, De la naturaleza de los
semblantes, Paidós, Buenos Aires, 2002.
- Wilkinson, Philip. Illustrated Dictionary of Religion. New York, DK
Publishers, 2006.
14
SEMBLANT, PARTENAIRE AND MASCULINE POSITION
Edgar V. Marín
The substance and the form. The thing does not suffice; form is
also required. Bad form spoils everything, even justice and reason. Good
form supplies everything, gilding the no, sweetening the truth and
perfuming decay itself. The how has much to do with things, and
manners are thieves of the heart. Carrying yourself well dresses up life
and pledges a happy ending to everything.
Baltasar Gracián
During the last three years at least, we, the members of the
Houston Freudian Field Library, have been reading various texts on
the field of psychoanalysis, especially those produced by Jacques
Lacan. Mid 2009 we were interested on the theme of Semblant, in
harmony with the congress that would be celebrated in Paris in May
2010 over the same topic. This interest made us decide to realize a
Cartel with Semblant as its central motive; thus, we could deepen our
understanding of it. We have also read about what the couple
relationships concerns to psychoanalysis, which is highly interesting
to us all, for that reason I chose “Semblant, Partenaire and masculine
position” as my cartel’s subject.
15
Semblant
What is Semblant [1], is it the face? This was my first questioning.
“You have a good semblant”, we hear people say when someone
looks healthy or cheerful. If this is it, it’s then quite simple, why to
occupy ourselves talking about it?
Well, after having read, researched and elaborated over this
Lacanian concept of Semblant at this cartel we finish today, I can
remember that during a long time I could just say “I don’t understand”,
it became so hard for me to understand that it wasn’t something other
than the face, to associate it to something different. At some point it
came the moment when I understood. Not only did I understand but I
felt a subtle illumination that made me jubilant, so much that for the
first time I could believe, after three years under analysis, my end of
analysis is possible and near, that I can make changes in my
subjective position, in how I present myself before others, in my
“Semblant”. This illumination is like encountering my own essence,
it’s like being without having to think, present myself such as I am,
such as it is convenient to me. At the moment I didn’t find the words
to describe it, the idea just vanished the same subtle way as it had
elucidated to me.
It was just today when I sat to write this summary that I could
describe it. For the time being, I know that I will be able to reach this
state again. It is apparent that difficulties in making a good semblant
have to do with some real condition that makes obstacles to it; maybe
it is the unconscious which impedes the “good Semblant”. Then,
16
analytically it would be said “You have a good Semblant, your
unconscious is at its minimum”.
A solution to obstacles resulted in a very particular and unedited
elaboration of this important concept within the Lacanian
Psychoanalysis. The good semblant is that in which we act at ease,
in accordance with the most convenience and we do it consciously;
not necessarily the same as “to hold semblance” in which we,
perhaps, act pretending conditions of being that are not comfortable
or convenient to us. How I position myself that is my Semblant.
Partenaire [2] and Masculine Position
As a result of the cartel work on Semblant, Partenaire and Masculine
position, it has been possible for me to write a text in the form of a
poem, which helps me make an approximation to answer the initial
question posed by my cartel’s subject.
A Masculine Position
I own it! I feel strong! I give it to you, then you’ll be it, So I don’t lose
it, The one mine you are. Love me for who I am, Not for what I give
you... For, by so doing, you must know, You will be mine! Will
represent me! Will give up your soul to me!
Could a man in masculine position be couple to a woman in the same position?
Perhaps, but I think it would be very difficult for it to work out well. As
we know, competition makes cooperation and mutual support difficult
17
and, this must diminish affection which is one of the attraction forces
between subjects that make up couples. For my Electrical
Engineering background, I would express it like with the magnetic
fields that when of the same sign repel each other, of different sign
attract each other. Now, we are talking about gender and position, we
have learned that there are men placed in a feminine position and
women in a masculine position; apparently, it is each one’s Semblant
that makes possible, moreover feasible, the couples’relationship.
Would this work well for a man in feminine position with a woman in a
masculine one?
I ask myself, Can we assure that just the combination of different
positions in a relationship guarantee its good functioning? Apparently
not; there are other elements in the subject’s behavior that also weigh
on this, which have not been considered in this work like de modes of
Joyssance in each subject. It would be interesting to research more
deeply into these elements.
Could we assure that “Semblant” is a state of consciousness, in
which we act freely the most convenient way”? (As I mentioned
before) If this is it, does a “consciousness”, “freedom” state exist? I
think there is a high degree of relativity in all this; however, as we
have learned from Lacan, the “Not all” is an important part of us
human condition. So, within its relativity, the expression “The
Semblant is a state of consciousness in which we act.....” continues
to be valid.
I have included, as an introduction to this work, the 14th aphorism of
18
the interesting book “Oráculo Manual, El Arte de la Prudencia” written
by Baltasar Gracián in the 17th century, I think this text approaches a
good description of the act of making Semblant.
Notes:
[1] -The author uses here the French word Semblant instead of the
English Semblance, though it’s the closest translation doesn’t quite
represent the concept this work treats on.
[2] -Partenaire is also a French word used in this work instead of the
English partner because it is a word mostly recognized in the
Psychoanalytical community.
Bibliography
- Brousse, Marie-Helene, Conference in Berkeley, California.
February 2008. (Unedited)
- Etinger, Diana. El Rechazo a la impostura Fálica. Artículo.
(Unedited)
- Gracián, Baltasar. Oráculo Manual y Arte de La Prudencia. Linkgua
Ediciones S.L, 2007.
- Lacan, Jacques. El Seminario No. 18. De un discurso que no fuera
del semblante. 1ra Ed. Paidós, Buenos Aires 2009.
- Miller, Jacques-Alain Curso de 1991-92, De la naturaleza de los
semblantes, Paidós, Buenos Aires 2002
- Miller, Jacques A. Seminarios: Piezas sueltas y Cosas de finura en
19
psicoanálisis, 2004 y 2008. (Unedited)
20
BEING-SEMBLANT
Carmen Navarro-Nino
A lacanian Cartel is a mode of social bond regulated by the
logics of incompleteness; inside it, effects of discourse over effects of
group are propitiated. The individual particular work of each member
vectors the formation of analysts in a lacanian school. Participating in
a cartel is a very particular experience.
“Thus, the being of desire reaches the being of knowledge to be
reborn in its knotting on a band of unique border where a sole lack is
inscribed, the one sustaining the Agalma”.
“Peace does not come immediately to seal this metamorphosis in
which the partenaire vanishes for not being anymore more than just a
vane knowledge that slips away”. J. Lacan
Approximations to Being and to Semblant
To this open presentation of my elaborations on this research work at
the Cartel on Semblant, I have decided to organize it in three logic
times:
Instant of seeing Time to understand Moment to conclude
21
1. – At the instant of seeing
At this first time I can express there was something enigmatic,
mysterious to me. Since the moment when the subject of the VII
congress of the WAP was known, it appeared to me that the subject
wasn’t suitable to propitiate desire of making social bond and I
thought of working a cartel on “Semblant and Sinthome”. In Houston
it took us a few months to get enthusiastic and get to work. There
were initial questions that I couldn’t answer; besides, we didn’t have
the 18th book of Jacques Lacan’s Seminar. Reading a text by
Baltasar Gracián in which he describes the Saint, it seems to me that
it oriented us to commence and advance with new enthusiasm. Once
the cartel was constituted and registered in NEL Miami, there was the
difficulty of how enigmatic the subject was.
Personally, I had trouble adjusting to the Cartel’s subject I had
chosen to work on: Being and Semblant, I digressed around reflecting
over the signifier “Being”. This signifier that I analyzed as different
from the “Self” (or Ego) and the Semblant, imposed as a priority and
as foregoing the question over Semblant. In one of our cartel
meetings we agreed to work on such concept of “Semblant”, as in the
original Jacques Lacan formulation, which we find mainly in the 18th
book of the Seminar “Over a discourse that weren’t of Semblant”,
lectured by Lacan in Paris between January the 13th and June the
16th 1971, just 39 years ago.
22
2. – Time to understand
When the poster of the VII congress was made public, it seemed to
me it was presented as a joke inviting to good mood and inspired me
to further research on “Being”. I owe Jacques Cazotte’s book “El
Diablo Enamorado”[1](The In Love Devil) rereading an elucidation
spark to initiate with enthusiasm researching and elaborating on my
cartel’s subject.
In the 11th book of his Seminar, Jacques Lacan makes a reference to
a Cazotte’s phrase, in relation to transference, “What does the
analyst want from me?”; “Che vuoi?” asks the In love devil, from a
window, incarnated in the semblant of “...a horrible camel head, with
oversized ears...” which asks: “Che vuoi?”
“Nothing would describe my state”, expresses in his text the young
captain of the Naples King Guard, when the “...odious phantom
opens its mouth and responds to his call”. What do you intend
temerarious creature, showing off yourself with that horrendous form?
“You called me”, responds the phantom. The young captain tells him:
“does the slave intend to intimidate his master? If you come to
receive orders, assume a convenient form and a submissive tone...”
the story continues and the horrible phantom takes the shape of a
beautiful Biondeta, of a Biondeto and other characters according to
the situation.
During observation of the poster I asked myself about the libidinal
investitures of “Being”, about the quixotic deed of the “being”,
different from the “beautiful soul” position, in which the subject
23
appears to be in the space of a great Other.
I tried to precise the quantum of the Being’s essence, the Being and
the mask present on the poster. I decided to ask about the being by
rereading various Greek poets and philosophers previous to the first
century B.C: Parmenides, Aristotle and Heraclitus and from the 20th
century: Martin Heidegger, from which I make the following
comments:
Parmenides, for instance, distinguishes “...the path to truth as the
only transit way that a philosopher should take”. His most outstanding
raisings are: that “Being” is unique, eternal, has no origin (it’s already
a being) and endless. Being is non mobile an immutable. He
expresses in “Poem to Nature”, “the path to persuasion that
accompanies truth and the path to ignorance is that of “Not-being”
which is not expressible” [2]. It’s important to emphasize that
Parmenides says in his poem he was illuminated by “the goddess
before which he was taken by the mares that dragged him with all his
desires’ power”.
From Parmenides sayings, it seems we can assure that “Logics of
Unity” prevails as a condition of knowledge and the “Logo of ONE” is
constituted as an “ontology condition of every idea”.
Regarding the so called “persuasion path that accompanies truth” we
can ask, as a result of the Cartel’s work:
Is it possible to understand that Semblant goes in proximity to
“persuasion that accompanies truth”?
24
Heraclitus. As for Heraclitus, his works and expressions set forth that
“the beginning of being is in fire”.
It is well known that to Aristotle, the “essence” of the being is “what it
is”. To Plato something is what it is because participates of some
“eidos”. Aristotle places the reason for something to be what it is in its
own essence in as much as “being” as a “form”. The act of being
“complete” is the creator, being finite is an act of being created,
compounded of essence and existence.
As we know, to Aristotle it was necessary to differentiate essence and
appearance. Appearance is contrary to reality, but it is not that
simple, metaphysicians argue about reality of appearances and point
out that ethics of “being” is the effort of its existence to reach again
the essence of a human being.
There are criticisms and denial of “essence” because apparently it is
not a palpable reality, not tangible. Some people see the “Being”
essence in the flowering of water lilies or any other flower. Once
having set some coordinates in regard to “Being”, I jumped to the
20th century and tried to investigate over:
Martin Heidegger [3]. In his text “Being and Time” (Sun and Zeit)
(1927), he sets on high profile the concept of “oblivion of the being”
and argues that in post-Aristotle history of metaphysics, “Being” was
confused with “entity” and taken as a synonymous, as a consequence
of this, “Being” was forgotten, it wasn’t studied correctly, it was
considered just another entity, it was taken as a “Thing” and
precisely, a “Being” is different from a thing. In 1955 Heidegger
25
discovers Provenzas, his second Greece. It is worth remembering
that Heidegger intended that his philosophical works helped many
people, especially those “Help Needy” [4], those so called mentally
insane.
In his Vaucluse Territory seminar, years 1959, 1966, 1968 and 1969
“...Heidegger explained his “Being-There” principle”, which means
being open to the world and tried to explain what his postulate meant.
He focused in being understood, “...he drew semicircles that should
represent that primary “being open to the world”, he set forth that
“open relationship with the world means “withstand” the present
without taking refuge in past or future”. Safraski, one of Heidegger’s
biographers, reports that in Zollikon’s seminars “individual psychic
illnesses and pathology of modern civilization’ were frequently treated
upon. Heidegger recognizes in individual misguidance the modernity
demented situation. The being of “being there” is the cure.
Heidegger had found a friend in Medard Boss, a psychiatrist, to
whom he confided a dream, supposedly unique, which repeated
frequently: “He had to take his Bachelor’s degree exam with his same
professor again”. Medard Boss reports “this stereotyped dream finish
definitely when him (Heidegger, A.N) in his awakened thinking was
able to “experience the dimension of being” at the “event’s” light...”
How did Heidegger understand his thought over “Being”?
“Heidegger understood his thought of being as an overcoming of the
modern will to power, that has led to catastrophe. This thought is not
26
far from what the philosopher Adorno looked up under the lemma of
“No-identity thought”. To Adorno the “no-identity” thought is one that
allows things and men to be in their singularity, neither polluting nor
regulating them by “making them identical”.
Heidegger linked the time factor to an obstacle. He wrote that curing
from time was just necessary, that “being there” does not represent a
sequence of “pure now”. Time given by “being there” has holes,
within an open temporality mode in each case.
Heidegger recalls over the “time factor”. There are moments in which
time always seems to triumph, so much in deterioration as in
construction. We say that what is constructed without time
cooperation results to be ephemeral. In his latter texts we find
Heidegger’s firm opposition to “no Identification”.
3. – Moment to conclude:
At the scansion of a logical time, I propose conclusions as a result of
this work, accompanied of a scheme of what we call “make
Semblant”.
After this journey, I find “being” still to be enigmatic to me and resists
to be defined and it is evident the enigma existent between “being”
and “Self”; the presence and the essence of being which as an
essence remains resilient to be defined. Semblant is opposed to
appearance and this enunciation results more clear now.
Lacan compelled us not to confuse Semblant either with presence or
with appearance of the image or the imaginary axis and also, to
27
sustain, to favor the symbolic axis. May be at this place we find the
essence of “Being”. Thus, Can we address the being’s essence? To
palpate the “being’s essence” a very particular position must be
assumed, well established on the symbolic, analyzing the imaginary
which as it is natural will always try to catch us.
After questioning over “Being” , once again we find ourselves at the
particular dimension of making semblant on a vector over which
“being-there-open-to-the world” is a position that knots to the
Sinthome and the social bond.
We also find ourselves at the position of distinguishing Unconscious
and Sinthome, willing to do with the lack at being the most convenient
Semblant, the ‘good way”, going from the “out of discourse” to the
opposition to Real through Semblant.
In his proposition of October the 9th 1967, J. Lacan points out that
[6]: “Because I reject the “Being” who didn’t know what caused his
phantom, the very moment at which he became that supposed
knowledge. That I now know what I didn’t know about the Being of
desire, what was concerning it, which came to the Being of
knowledge and that it vanishes itself”.
What does specifically constitute Semblant? Is it the presence? Or is
the Semblant closer to style? From Freud’s assertion: “where It was I
(self) must make advent”. It seems that there is something that
detains, I (self) who makes advent implies the prevailing Semblant
beyond presence. Something that should be constructed with
consciousness about the lack at being, presence may absent itself
28
but the Semblant stays in memory. In as much as appearance could
not be what it pretends and becomes deceit, style would appear to be
more Semblant-according. In a woman the semblant is linked to what
is veiled, to the “feminine masquerade”, which is essential to feminine
sexuality. We see the reflection of a look to take the appearance of
other. Sometimes we can observe in women and men a Semblant on
the way to a particular talent. At the position between Semblant and
Joissance is the lack at being. We can ask ourselves, why are my
desired Semblant and the one I actually offer sometimes out of
phase?
There are some open questionings as a result of this cartel’s work.
One Eros element that appears to be fundamental when we talk
about “making semblant”, which just as J. Lacan indicates, it is
Desire. Another element which questions me is the “time factor” that
Martin Heidegger explains in his text “Being and Time”, which he
points out to be an obstacle to “being-there-open-to-the world”. He
formulated enunciations related to how harmful and inconvenient that
factor is and also expressed “we have to cure ourselves of time”.
Another very important aspect highlighted by Heidegger is
“Identification”. Regarding this concept, Heidegger takes a firm
position; he says NO to identification and considers it harmful.
Luca Giordano (1682), an artist of the 18th century, reflected in his
work “Allegory to Prudence” one scene where he places the “Triumph
of Time” besides Prudence. The triumph of logical time in the
analytical journey which we know is different for everyone, taking
distance between I (self) and Identification. After the ending we find
29
the desire to know in the analysand, the signifier of gratitude and the
emptiness of creation, pure desire and Semblants.
Notes:
[1] -Cazotte, Jacques. El Diablo enamorado. Ediciones Península.
Barcelona 1998.
[2] -Heráclito, Parménides, Empédocles. Editorial Fontana. España
1995.
[3] -Heidegger, Martin. 1927 El Ser y el Tiempo. Fondo de Cultura
Económica Sept. 1998 Bogotá, Colombia. Traducción José Gaos.
[4]- Safranski, Rudiguer. Un maestro de Alemania. Editorial
Tusquets. 1a Edición 1997. Barcelona. Pago 465.
[5] - Op cit. pág. 474 [6] - Lacan, Jacques. Momentos cruciales de la
experiencia
analítica. Edit. Manantial, Argentina. 1991. P.18- 19.
- Lacan, Jacques. El Seminario No. 18. De un discurso que no fuera
del semblante. 1ra Ed. Paidós, Buenos Aires, 2009.
- Miller, Jacques-Alain. Curso de 1991-92, De la naturaleza de los
Semblantes. Paidós, Buenos Aires 2002.
30
SEMBLANT, FORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE
Luis F. Nino
My cartel subject included at least three variables which
combination influence subjects’ advance since early childhood.
My first setback or Real was to ask myself, what is a Semblant?
With regard to “Semblant”, in his introduction to the course “About the
nature of Semblants” [1], Jacques-Alain Miller makes a journey
through the meaning of the word Semblant in the French language,
very similar to the Spanish “Semblante” (and face or countenance in
English, translator’s note) , which defines face nowadays, although
there is another sense that means appearance, similarity, which was
very commonly used from the 13th to 15th centuries applied to things
due to its use, that signifier has shifted to designate the face or the
appearance of the speaking person.
When we refer to formation, many times it is confused with education;
however, those are two different terms, in psychoanalysis we speak
about formation, whether it is of the analyst, of the unconscious, etc;
leaving the term education in a closer relation to pedagogy, learning
and acquisition of knowledge.
31
Formation implies recognition of ignorance and the decisive work to
reduce it. Here we face the desire to know as the unknown to figure
out.
Some questions arise:
How to approximate to the Lacanian concept of Semblant to help us
during the learning process by the learner or person supposed to
learn?
What benefits the knowledge transference process, and what
becomes a Real that impedes or blocks acquisition of knowledge?
Namely, it comes to every student in particular and the institution
demands equality in treatment.
What do we find here? Attention must be for all; however, treatment
should be particular.
We find, how language makes a distinction in the learning process
when we say “estudiante”, student, “etudiant” and “learner”, the
difference between the one studying ant the learner who is, in this
case, the same individual.
It seems that the professor function always looms over a Semblant.
As we know, there is always a Semblant, transference is always
present in an educational institution, and the professor must direct it
to knowledge, instead of, to his or her own person.
Freud recognized the difficulties of psychoanalysis to create
32
pedagogy. In 1908 Sandor Ferenczy, who initially was a Freud’s
disciple, gave a conference about “Psychoanalysis and Pedagogy”.
One year later pastor Oscar Pfister presents Freud a project on
pedagogy that incorporates psychoanalysis concepts; in 1925 Freud
writes a letter in which he acknowledges Pfister as the inaugurator of
the application of psychoanalysis to pedagogy and mentions his
(Freud’s) daughter Anna’s works in that same field. At that moment
he considers that the main transforming contribution of
psychoanalysis to education is via the analysis of teachers
themselves.
Is Education an impossible?
Freud mentioned three impossible: to educate, to govern and to
analyze when he says in “Terminable and Interminable analysis” [2]:
“Let’s detain for a moment to assure the analyst our sincere
sympathy for having to achieve such difficult requirements in the
exercise of his(her) activity. And it seemed that “analysis” is the third
of those impossible professions in which insufficiency of results can
be foreseen beforehand. The other two are well known from before,
to educate and to govern”.
But how did Freud reach this conclusion? May be he offers an
explanation in his “New Introductory Conferences to Psychoanalysis”
[3] when he said: “an educator must find his way between the Escila
of “letting do” and the Caribdis of “Frustration” (which could divert in
authoritarian excess)”. This quotation referred to navigation between
two large crags at the southern Italian sea named Escila and
33
Caribdis. This challenge does not guaranty results, tools help but we
have to take into account the nature of children (“Polymorph
Perverse”, 1900, S. Freud), the initial events of their lives and their
family and affective bonds.
While there are no guaranties in Education, from psychoanalysis we
know there are even less without it, understanding it not only as
formal Education, but family Education and Education in society
which are necessary as well.
Freud acknowledges that a unique procedure of a pedagogue cannot
result beneficial to all children [4].
There is a gap between what is taught and what is learned, learning
being a totally individual process.
The educational system and its immediate representatives under the
professor’s Semblant try, by all means, to get the message to the
learning individual, without a success guarantee though.
How to reduce that impossible?
“Education for all” have been tried to achieve, differentiating it in
types of intelligence (Visual, Auditive, Kinesthetic, etc.) by the use of
different strategies (Reading, Writing, Audiovisuals, Handicrafts),
following organized sequences like the 5E or the 7E (Engage,
Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate) and additionally (Elicit,
Extend). To some experienced teachers, it is the same pedagogy
according to Bloom’s taxonomy classification with new names and
modifications.
34
From my point of view, by dividing the whole of learners in small units
it is easier to guide them in this journey in which due to age factors,
preparation is required before being incorporated to the productive
system.
What other elements must be taken into consideration?
Here we find several loose ends, among them: the subject in its
individuality, its initial history, its position before mother’s desire, his
relation with the father, his family bonds, his ability to defend himself
at school and his desire to learn. How to spark that desire? How to
keep it on once ignited? And if it turns off how to turn it back on?
May be the way to initiate, maintain and hold it, is by creating bonds
that keep the subject knotted to the institution, to his teacher and to
his desire.
From Freud’s teachings we know that “Identification and bonds to the
other” are inseparable. It seems that in most subjects the first
Identification is with the father, it is the first social bond. “Ideals”
function as a mode of social regulation. We find ourselves before the
fall of ideals (Religious, Political, Sport Heroes, etc.) which causes
dispersion of the masses and originates violence.
Moreover, there are imaginary identifications without regulating ideals
(users of Blackberries, some brand name clothes users, etc.) and this
could also generate segregation and violence.
Social bonds fragility and the fall of ideals translate into defying
authority or its non acknowledgement, and this carries violence. From
35
there, the importance of the bonds between teachers and students
arises. When the desire to learn does not conciliate with the bond that
ties the learner, desertion occurs; non insertion, violent or not,
happens and there we face the panorama of reinsertion that may
include psychological treatment and medication.
It seems that a permissive and tolerant professor’s semblant
propitiates the decline of ideals and, of the authority, and does not
favor either confidence or the possibility of a dignified social bond
between students, the institution and the professor.
Well, what is the professor’s semblant ultimately?
Following Lacan, we know that whoever makes the question has the
answer, he just has to find it or construct it. There is no Semblant of
professor, there are Semblants of professors. If we assume the
dimension of the impossible to educate as a Real, a Semblant would
go in the direction of reducing that Real. There is no prescription. If
educating is impossible, it is not possible to define parameters,
whether it is Semblant of professor or individuality of learners, etc.
Let’s remember that between those two large crags, what works with
someone does not necessarily work with others, but we need to
continue trying.
Conclusions
As a conclusion I see no guaranties as a result of the educational
process and ask if education is a truth or, is it an illusion that can be
educated? Learning is a particular experience for everyone. The
36
subject has to consent to receive an education.
It would seem that the professor’s position requires a strategy that will
allow the student to study and learn.
It is required to “Self-Form” a Semblant. I don’t find or there is no
prescription for a professor’s Semblant.
From the professor’s position we learn from ourselves and from
students during the educational process.
It is not convenient to use the term development but advancement for
there are persons, institutions and even developed countries with
difficulties to advance.
Learning occurs when there are transference conditions. Lacan
points out in his “Seminar about transference” that transference has
first and last name, it is addressed to someone.
Are we compelled to reinvent the future?
Notes:
[1] -Jacques-Alain Miller, Curso de 1991-92, De la naturaleza de los
semblantes, Paidos, Buenos Aires 2002
[2] -Freud, Sigmund, Análisis terminable e interminable. Tomo XXIII,
pág. 249, Amorrortu. 1999.
[3] -Freud, Sigmund. Nuevas conferencias de introducción al
psicoanálisis. Conferencia 34, pag. 126-145, Amorrortu. 1999.
37
[4] -Ibidem.
Bibliography:
- Ahumada, Lizbeth. Social ties: Semblant and Symptom. AMP Blog
2009
- Bassols, Miquel. Some observations about the semblant. AMP
Papers – Version 2009-2010 –N°2 – June 2009.
- Beltrán, Bosco, Silva. Entre Muros. Instituto Oscar Masotta. Buenos
aires. 2010.
- Freud, Sigmund, Analysis terminable and interminable. Book XXIII,
Amorrortu. 1999.
- Freud, Sigmund. New introductory conferences to Psychoanalysis.
Conference 34, Amorrortu. 1999.
- Goncalves, J. Psychoanalysis and education. EP Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
- Lacan, Jacques. El Seminario No. 18. De un discurso que no fuera
del semblante. 1ra Ed. Paidós, Buenos Aires 2009.
- Miller, Jacques-Alain Curso de 1991-92, De la naturaleza de los
semblantes, Paidós, Buenos Aires 2002.