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Catherine Millot and the Last Lacan

anecdote · psychoanalysis: Lacan biography · retold in 3 talks

Žižek dismisses the idea that Lacan’s final years (represented by his 'official mistress' Catherine Millot) contained a 'last wisdom' or point of the Real, arguing instead that these seminars represent a 'gradual disintegration' and a liberalizing of Lacan’s thought.

2010: 1 talk 2018: 1 talk 2023: 1 talk
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026

As told 3

“the idea was that she was there when lacon was dying... no, i claim... i'm more and more convinced they're gradual disintegration.”
“there is a quote from some India ancient... writing. I think he was flirting there. He simply opportunistically referred to it.”
“All this gay rights... undermines the very symbolic coordinates of our social space.”

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one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

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Every retelling 3

Žižek dismisses the idea that Lacan’s final years (represented by his 'official mistress' Catherine Millot) contained a 'last wisdom' or point of the Real, arguing instead that these seminars represent a 'gradual disintegration' and a liberalizing of Lacan’s thought., illustrating gradual disintegration
At the end of his foundational Rapport de Rome, Lacan quotes an ancient Indian text; Žižek interprets this as mere opportunistic fashionable flirtation, like Lacan's earlier pro-structuralist self-proclamation, not genuine engagement with Eastern thought., illustrating psychoanalysis and Eastern philosophy,Lacan's opportunism
Legendre argues gay rights undermine symbolic coordinates, leading to 'psychotic totalitarianism,' requiring a re-emergence of symbolic authority., illustrating Lacan as provocateur