The Logician or the Savant: Lacan's Reinvention of the Marxist Intellectual
A presentation with Lacan Toronto
In the wake of May 68, Lacan convenes his 16th seminar, “From an other to the Other” and his audience is full of Marxist intellectuals who are eager to understand the fallout from the May 68 uprising. Lacan proceeds to engage in a sustained and rigorous engagement with Marx, drawing on an analysis of Marx’s Capital, especially Vol. I, chapter VII on “The Production of Absolute Surplus Value.” Lacan points out that Marx identifies the historical moment in which surplus value is locatable in a scientific manner and that this moment coincides with a shift in the relation between knowledge and surplus jouissance. Throughout the seminar, Lacan argues that May 68 can be understood as a “truth strike” in which the apparatus of capitalism has seized the revolutionary desire of the protestors. But the leading Marxist intellectuals fail to grasp how the 68 rebellion failed.
In this paper, I propose that Seminar XVI should be read as a sustained criticism of the Marxist intellectual as much as it is a theoretical elaboration of the novelty of Marx’s contribution to science and politics. We will explore Lacan’s critique of the Marxist intellectual: why does Marxist thought seem to miss how the truth operates in the protest movement of 68? How is the bureaucracy of Marxist thought under Stalinism affecting theoretical knowledge? Ultimately, what is at stake is how the Marxist intellectual understands the alienation of the proletariat. At stake is a criticism of Marxist knowledge, its reliance on a conception of totality, worldview, and its understanding of class and ideology. Lacan sees Marxism as offering up an ultimately faulty prescription for the worker, one that seeks to make the proletariat into a “savant.” We will consider how Lacan proposes an entirely new epistemology for Marxist thought, and the implications for the fusion of Lacanian thought with Marxism.
A video of this presentation to Lacan Toronto was presented on Sunday 20 October 2024
To read this paper please download it here.
Daniel Tutt (PhD) is a philosopher with a focus on psychoanalytic theory and Marxist thought. He is the author of Psychoanalysis and the Politics of the Family: The Crisis of Initiation (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Lacan Series, 2022) and How to Read Like a Parasite: Why the Left Got High on Nietzsche (London: Repeater Books, 2024). His essays and interviews have appeared in journals and magazines such as Historical Materialism, European Journal of Psychoanalysis, Philosophy Now, In Analysis, Jacobin, and collections on psychoanalysis and culture. He has taught philosophy at George Washington University, Marymount University, the Washington, D.C. Jail, and is a Senior Research Fellow at the Global Center for Advanced Studies. Tutt hosts the Emancipations podcast and study group collective which convenes public seminars on important Marxist, psychoanalytic, and philosophical texts. He is a member of the Lacanian Forum of Washington, D.C. (IF-EPFCL). By closely reading the Seminar 16 session “Thought (as) Censorship,” Tutt addresses Lacan's response to conservative Freudian reactions to the May 1968 uprising and his re-theorization of the Marxist idea of revolution.
Recommended Reading and Video:
Jacques Lacan, “Thought (as) Censorship,” [Session of 23 April 1969] in ed. Jacques-Alain Miller & trans. Bruce Fink, From an Other to the other: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book 16 (Hoboken: Polity Press, 2024), 229-241.
Daniel Tutt, “Lacan on Reactionary Psychoanalysis—Study Group on Seminar 16 (Session 9),” in Emancipations with Daniel Tutt (Online session of 23 July 2024)
Bibliography (selected)
Anthony Ballas, “Psychoanalysis and the Politics of the Family: The Crisis of Initiation, an Interview with Daniel Tutt," in European Journal of Psychoanalysis, vol 10. no. 1 (2023): accessed online.
Daniel Tutt, How to Read Like a Parasite: Why the Left Got High on Nietzsche (London: Repeater Books, 2024)
Daniel Tutt, Psychoanalysis and the Politics of the Family: The Crisis of Initiation (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) [Part of the Palgrave Lacan Series edited by Calum Neill and Derek Hook]
Daniel Tutt, “Preface and key concepts from my book Psychoanalysis and the Politics of the Family” in Daniel Tutt (Personal website) (Article last modified: 4 April 2022)
Reference videos (selected)
“Study Group on Lacan’s Seminar 16: Playlist of Sessions,” in Emancipations with Daniel Tutt (Online meetings)
Professional affiliations (selected)
Emancipations with Daniel Tutt
is there a recording?