3 ..16
There are certainly very respectable precedents, some of which are disturbingly close to Freud. I am referring to Kelsen, who nevertheless realised that he had committed a very big mistake, on which he wrote a palinode. But since 1945 (!!!), among the philosophers of rights, judicial positivism (which is nothing other that the name for statism) no longer benefits from the slightest prestige – although it is true that those who have a judicial formation are still, today, in the worst position to elaborate a conception of rights that is different from the one you believe to be normal. Despite this, nobody continues to believe, as you do, that the State can legislate on anything (other than the solicitors, that is, who notoriously know nothing about philosophy of rights). Indeed, to believe this is to confuse legitimation with legislation. If you want a small bibliography, I can let you have an essential and very useful one.
On this point, dear Antonello, I shall never let go. The problem is one of global politics, even one of nothing less than civilization. In other words, it is a matter that concerns something more than psychoanalytic disappointments. I am saying this from my position, which has never been, nor will ever be that of a politician. Sure, I shall never bore you again with the ministerial commissions. But I shall continue to do so with regard to the necessity for the supporters of Spaziozero to clarify their ideas about these general political (and ethical) folds in relation to their own positions. From this point of view, Freud’s übertreten could have worked only before Nazism, when in Europe there was still a liberalism that today has almost disappeared (and which has never existed in Italy). But Freud is not a great example, as he belongs to the number of Jews who did not believe in the existence of concentration camps (until they themselves ended up there, as it would have happened to him had he not been supported by Bonaparte).
With affection,
Ettore
From Sciacchitano to Perrella
Milan, 16th September 1997
Dear Ettore,
I too believe that this correspondence is important, as it allows the expression of positions that are difficult to understand in the printed form. For example, if I were to publish what I wish to say to you today, I would have to inscribe it with the title of ‘serwild’ (1) psychoanalysis. Even among the most tolerant journals of Spaziozero, which one would allow me to do so? Yes, it is not a typing error: ‘serwild psychoanalysis’ is not Romanesque style psychoanalysis. It is the psychoanalysis that calls to servitude, which, as Lacan says, is typical of human sciences (in La science et la vérité he speaks of their appel à la servitude, cfr. Écrits p. 859). I see the greatest amount of servile appeal in that deterioration of the busybodies belonging to the human sciences by now legalised as psychotherapy. Is it worth remembering that the first meaning of terapéia is servitude?