HOUSTON OPEN SKY

Houston freudian field library

nel fibol member

# 2

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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.

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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

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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...”

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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).

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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?

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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,

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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

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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

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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

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psicoanálisis, 2004 y 2008. (Unedited)

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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

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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.

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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

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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”?

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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

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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

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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.