The Italian Connection Part 2

6 ..16

P.S.: I am interested in resuming your thesis on the impossibility of ethical judgement in Freudian terms. Freud has elaborated a true doctrine of judgement at various points: it goes from the Project to Metapsychology (Unconscious), to the Mystic Writing Pad, to Negation. I start ab ovo, that is, from the Project (I, SS 16). I translate:
‘Judgement is a process made possible by the inhibition of the Ego and activated by the lack of resemblance between the investment of desire of a memory and an analogous perceptive investment. The outcome could be that the coincidence of the two investments will become a biological signal that puts an end to the activity of thinking and gives way to discharge. On the contrary, the non-coincidence of these stimulates the work of thinking, which again ends at the next coincidence.’
What does this mean? That we should not formulate ethical judgement? That in the field of ethics one can never arrive to the act? That the constant inhibition of the Ego is valid? It would be, then, a truly intellectual inhibition – that of ethical judgement – that never arrives at formulating itself and never ‘discharges’ itself into the act. Why? Because there is a perceptive fault? Because there is a lack of ‘ethical’ memory? How do you understand this?
I think that there is something to be rescued from your thesis. For example, that ethical judgement cannot be an adjustment to the dictates of an already written law (judicial law). But how does one get to the Freudian ‘discharge’? A way of doing so could be to admit that ethical activity – at least, that of analysts – is like that which is realised in analysis: by writing laws until now still not written, as those of an Antigonean memory would be – Heidegger would say: ‘by leading to unconcealment’. The occasion to do so could be whichever. Even law 56 can be an occasion to write ethical novelties and, even, to forge new bonds between analysts – as I hope will be the case for us.

(1) Original text ‘servaggia’, a pun devised by Sciacchitano that condenses servile (servile) and selvaggia (wild).
(2) ‘Pentito (Italian repented, plural pentiti) is the name customarily given to former members of an Italian Mafia who have abandoned their organisation and started helping in investigations… The pentiti’s… correct technical name in Italian is collaboratori di giustizia (‘Justice collaborators’). In exchange for the information they deliver, pentiti receive shorter sentences for their crimes, in some cases even freedom. In the Italian judicial system, pentiti can obtain personal protection, a new name, and some money to start a new life in another place, possibly abroad. This practice is common in other countries as well: in the United States, criminals testifying against their former associates can enter the Witness Protection Program, and be given new identities, with supporting paperwork.’

(From Wikipedia, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentiti).