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On the Baroque 02

Encore 401
再来一次

Jacques Lacan
雅克 拉岡

On the Baroque 01
论巴洛克风格

As someone recently noticed, I am situated ( je me range) –who situates me? Is it him


or is me? That’s a subtlety of language—I am situated essentially on the side of the
baroque.

有某个人最近注意到,我被贴标签定调。是谁跟我贴标签定调呢?是他?还是我
那是语言的微妙说。基本上,我被贴标签定调在巴洛克风格这一边。

That is a reference point borrowed from the history of art. Since the history of art, just
like history and just like art, is something that is related not to the winning side but to
the sleeve ( la manche), in other words, to sleight of hand, I must, before going on,
tell you what I mean by that—the subject, “ I,” being no more active in that ‘ I mean”
than in the “ I am situated.”

这是一个从艺术的历史借用过来的指称。因为艺术的历史,就像是历史,也像艺
术,不是跟胜利者的那一边有关,而是跟失意者这一边有关,换句话说,憑藉
个人才艺翻转命运。在说下去以前,我必须告诉你们我是什麽意思,当我说「我
是什麽意思」,跟我说「我被人贴标签定调」,「我」作为生命的主体,同样都是
处於被动的情况。

And that is what is going to make me delve into the history of Christianity. Weren’t
you expecting it?

那就是为什麽我不得不来探讨基督教的历史。你们不是也想要吗?

The baroque is, at the outset, the ‘ storyette” or little tale of Christ. I mean what
history recounts about a man. Don’t blow a fuse trying to figure it out—he himself
designated himself as the Son of Man. That is reported by four texts said to be ‘
evangelical,” not so much because they bore good news as because ( their authors)
were announcers who were good at propagating their sort of news. It can also be
understood that way, and that strikes me as more appropriate. They write in such a
way that there is not a single fact that cannot be challenged therein—God knows that
people naturally ran straight at the muleta. These texts are nonetheless what go right
to the heart of truth, the truth as such, up to and including the fact I enunciate, that one
can only say it halfway.

从一开始,巴洛克风格就是耶稣的「秘闻」或是小传。我的意思是,历史所描述
的,关於这麽一个人。我们不必太大惊小怪,来理解这样的事实,因为他自己都
自称是「人之子」。那是「福音书」的四个文本所报导的内容,倒不是这些福音书
带来好的讯息,而是因为他们的作者都是很擅长於传播他们那种的讯息。我们可
以用那样的方式来了解,我觉得那样反而更加贴切得体。他们用那种方式写,以
致於里面,几乎每一件事情的真假都受到质疑。天晓得,人们的天性就像鬥牛一
样,看到红布,就直往前衝。不过,我们还是可以从这些文本当中,直接探讨真
理的核心,如此这般的真理,甚至可以包括我所表达的我们只能圆滑妥协的事
实。

That is a simple indication. Their shocking success would imply that I take up these
texts and give you lessons on the Gospels. You see what that would lead to.

这是一个单纯的指示。那些福音书令人歎为观止的成功,本来意味着,我应该拿
起这些文本,来跟你们上福音书的课。你们明白,那结果会是什麽。

I would do that to show you that those texts can best be grasped in light of the
categories I have tried to isolate in analytic practice, namely, the symbolic, imaginary,
and real.

我这样做是为了告诉你们,要理解那些文本,最好是从我在精神分析经验中,
孤立出来的分类,换句话说,符号界、想象界、及真实界。

To restrict our attention to the first, I enunciated that truth is the “ ditmension,” the
mension” of what is said ( la mension dud it).

In this rein, you can’t say it any better than the Gospels. You can’t speak any better of
the truth. That is why they are the Gospels. You can’t even bring the dimension of
truth into play any better, in other words, push away reality in fantasy.

After all, what followed demonstrated sufficiently—I am leaving behind the texts and
will confine my attention to their effect—that this dit-mension stands up. It inundated
what we call the world, bringing it back to its filthy truth. It relayed what the roman, a
mason like no other, had founded on the basis of a miraculous, universal balance,
including baths of jouissance sufficiently symbolized by those famous thermal baths
of which only crumbled bits remain. We can longer have the slightest idea to what
extent, regarding jouissance, that took the cake. Christianity rejected all that to the
abjection considered to be the world. It is thus not without an intimate affinity to the
problem of the true that Christianity subsists.

That it is the true religion, as it claims, is not an excessive claim, all the more so in
that, when the true is examined closely, it’s the worst that can be said about it.

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