“R…detected a queer #sense_of_humor in Lacan…[that was] #deep, #dadaist & #hilarious …‘I was facing an aging #performance_̶artist [Lacan was 68] — whose very #garb had something of #the_cabaret — …slowing-down [&]…at-times speeding-up to culminate in #a_punning_one_̶liner’.”
For all this hilarity, R noted that “curiously,* he was #being_listened_̶to #in_utmost_silence by an audience intent on #not_missing_one_word” *[“curiously” for the young R as opposed to the old L]. #Silent_Hillᵃʳᶦᵗʸ.
The significance of comedy is specified in #Seminar_I, for instance, when he pauses during an explanation of an optical experiment to reflect on how being too serious corrupts critical thought. “The closer we get to psychoanalysis being funny the more it is really psychoanalysis”
Lacan tried to use comedy to liberate disciples from slavish devotion to him, hoping that humor would awaken their capacity for critical thought. “In Rome in 1974 Lacan…complained that too many psychoanalysts were lacking in humor, despite his best intentions to make them laugh”
The self-reflexive way he reveals that #he_is_imitating_the_voice_of_the_master makes him…a veritable #meta_̶charlatan…a fraudulent master whose duplicity is enacted not for the sake of tricking us, but in order to open our eyes to the fact that #authority_is_always a deceit.
P.D. (Peter D) Mathews, #Lacan_the_Charlatan: #Witⱼ_Wisecracks_and_Wordplay_in_the_Workˢ_of_Lacan (Palgrave Macmillan 2020).
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