Should we get out of what Freud and Lacan passed on to us, to come down this « patriarchal couch »[1] they supposedly have installed – according to Paul B. Preciado’s formula with which he intimated us –, to participate in this phenomenal rise of the actual criticism of patriarchy ?
Rather, it should be noticed that what we call « father » in psychoanalysis allows us to not ignore the drifts of the unshakable believe in the universal father, and to consider as established that its value isn’t located in normality.
The two texts to discover in this edition guide us in a very enlightening manner about this matter, while responding to each other.
In his approach of the question of « the father’s maladies », Fabian Fajnwaks emphasizes thereby the unheard of the subversive definition of the lacanien father, starting from its relationship with the plus-de-jouir [surplus enjoyment] – its père-version[2] –, and from its symptoms. It’s the real of the function which is therefore unveiled, beyond its symbolic status on the side of exception. And it’s this orientation itself which allows us to keep away the psychoanalysis from all suspicion of contributing to the legitimacy of the patriarchal order.
Catherine Lacaze-Paul invites us next to explore the « sins of the father », his excess as to the jouissance, by pinning some of the multiple faces that can take this figure of the « toxic father ». In this time of experiencing the slogan of « ending the patriarchal model »[3], would this often terrible figures of the enjoyer father (père jouisseur) relentlessly waved at the moment invite to unequivocally object to the father under the name of patriarchy ? Clotilde Leguil displayed this hypothesis in a recent show of Studio Lacan[4] : in the term of patriarchy resonates a contemporary critic of abuse, she suggests, reducing the paternal function at the exercise of domination (moreover male, we could add) – we’ll come back to that more fully in a next edition.
Thereby, the orientation texts about our actuality now discovered reveal themselves as precious lightings to tighten even more the foundations and what’s at stake in the useful task which falls to us as practitioners of the « one by one » of the psychoanalysis.
Translation : Aurélie Solliec
Proofreading : Ana-Marija Kroker
Picture: © Jos Tontlinger
[1] « Interview with Paul B. Preciado, by François Ansermet and Omaïra Meseguer, during the 49th ECF Conference », Lacan Quotidien, n°868, February the 10th 2020, available online : https://lacanquotidien.fr/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/LQ-868.pdf
[2] In French in the original. Lacan’s way of writing « père-version », « perversion » and « version of the father ».
[3] « Réinventer la famille, en finir avec le modèle patriarcal » [To reinvent the family, to end the patriarchal model], La Déferlante. La Revue des révolutions féministes, n°7, September 2022.
[4] Leguil C., « Actualité de la psychanalyse. Critique du monopole de la jouissance légitime » [Actuality of the psychoanalysis. Critics of the monopoly of the legitimate jouissance], Studio Lacan, n°42, 28th January 2023, available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD-iwMv7z3A
