40
PARTISAN REVIEW
nor hinders human solidarity. Rorty 's view of philosophy clearly was influ–
enced by deconstructionist theories, which themselves were influenced by
Den"ida's critique of Lacan.
The achievements of the classical analysts contributed to such fields as
psychosomatics and literature, but the impact of
La psychanaLyse
on the
Parisian public was due to Lacan. In fact, his philosophical ideas were aimed
at large audiences while he denounced the establishment Freudians.
As
Clara
Malraux once told me, people who listened to Lacan (including herself) often
did not understand what he was saying and were outraged by some of the
silences and attacks on opponents in his open seminars. Yet they went to hear
him and
to
observe him: he put on the best show in town. His outrageous
behavior provided unexpected excitement, and his statements always left his
listeners in intellectual suspense, mulling over what he had meant and won–
dering what they could get out of them for their "self-analyses." In such a
climate, there was little need for books explaining Lacan, although the French
wrote volumes that incorporated his ideas and others that disputed them.
And there was the gossip surrounding Lacan's defectors. One analyst was a
scoundrel, it was said, one a conniver; another "never saw a schizophrenic.
One counted the suicides of one, the hospitalizations of the other ... the
unresolved transference to his analyst of yet another ... If one believed the
rumors, ninety percent of Parisian analysts should have been disqualified."
(Clement, ({ 1978} 1987).
In this climate, it was unlikely even after Lacan died that anyone in
France would proclaim him the most important thinker since Descartes and
the most innovative one since Nietzsche and Freud, as Ellie Ragland-Sullivan
recently did in America (1986). Still, by "moving psychoanalysis into the
street," he probably was the nlost influential psychoanalyst since Freud.
French classical Freudians, who now are dealing with the aftermath of
"Lacanism" and who were influenced by his presence if not his philosophy,
are cu rrently reevaluating
all
of psychoanalysis and are particularly con–
cerned with the future of the therapy. But so are the Lacanians.
By 1986, there were at least fourteen Lacanian "leaders," each
claiming to be the true successor. Some of them, such as Serge Leclaire and
Didier Anzieu, appeared to be moving closer to the classical Freudians; oth–
ers, like Fran<;oise Dolto and Jacques-Alain Miller, were holding their own
ground. Their many publications flourished . In addition to the monthly
newsletter of the
EcoLe de La Cause Freudienne, L'Ane,
and
Ornicar?,
there
were
Le Cout freudien, Le Discoun PsychanaLytique, Cahien de Lectures
freudiennes, Confrontation, PsychanaLystes: Le poLitique et l'exclusion du
f eminin, LittoraL, SciLicet ,
the proceedings of the meetings of the Cartels
Constituants de I'Analyse Freudienne,
fnceste: Nouvelle revue
