APATHY IN THEORY

« I think the moment has come for breaking off [...]. » The moment has come to break
off theoretical terror. This matter is a very big one, that we will have on our hands for quite a
while. The desire for truth, which feeds everyone's terrorism, is inscribed in our most
uncontrolled use of language, so much so that any discourse appears naturally to deploy its
pretension to speak the truth, by some sort of hopeless vulgarity. Well, the time has now come
to remedy this vulgarity, to introduce into ideological or philosophical discourse the same
refinement, the same force of lightness obtaining in works of painting, music, "experimental"
cinema, as well, obviously, as in those of the sciences. In no way is the idea to invent one or
more new theories, nor interpretations either; what we lack is a diablerie or an apathy such that
the theoretical genre itself suffer subversions that its pretension does not recover from; that it
turn into merely a genre again and be dislodged from the position of mastery or domination
that it has held at least since Plato: that truth become a question of style.

The text that Freud published in 1920, Jenseits des Lustprinzips, contains an outline of this
attitude. It is not a bad thing to examine it whilst Freudian scholasticism strives to make the
pathos of knowledge – conviction –, rule everywhere.

ADVOCATUS DIABOLI.

Freud. « I think the moment has come for breaking off. Not, however, without the
addition of a few words of critical reflection [Besinnung: reverting to the sense]. It may be asked
whether and how far I am myself convinced [überzeugt: in the sense that a testimony, a Zeugnis
convinces one, as in "conviction piece"] of the truth of the hypotheses that have been set out
in these pages. My answer would be that [würde lauten: would sound something like] I am not
convinced myself and that I do not seek to persuade [werben: as would a recruiting agent] other
people to believe in them. Or, more precisely, that I do not know how far I believe in them.
There is no reason, as it seems to me, why the emotional factor [das affecktive Moment] of
conviction should enter into this question at all. It is surely possible to throw oneself [surrender
oneself: sich hingeben, as in "to yield oneself up" to pleasure, to debauchery] into a line of
thought [Gedankengang] and to follow it wherever it leads out of simple scientific curiosity
[Neugierde: desire for the new and news], or, if the reader prefers, as an advocatus diaboli, who is
not on that account himself sold [verschreibt] to the devil. I do not dispute the fact that the third
step in the theory of the instincts [in der Trieblehre], which I have taken here, cannot lay claim to
the same degree of certainty [Sicherheit] as the two earlier ones – the extension of the concept of
sexuality and the hypothesis of narcissism.[...].

« And in any case it is impossible to pursue an idea of this kind [die Durchführung dieser
Idee: i.e. the idea that a drive is always "regressive" in the sense that it brings the "organism"
back to an earlier state] except by repeatedly combining factual material with what is purely
speculative [mit bloss Erdachten] and thus diverging widely from empirical observation. The more
 2
frequently this is done in the course of constructing a theory, the more untrustworthy, as we
know, must be the final result. But the degree of uncertainty is not assignable. One may have
made a lucky hit or one may have gone shamefully astray. I do not think a large part is played
by what is called 'intuition' [Intuition] in work of this kind. From what I have seen of intuition, it
seems to me to be the product of a kind of intellectual impartiality [Unparteilichkeit des Intellekts].
Unfortunately, however, people are seldom impartial where ultimate things, the great problems
of science and life, are concerned. Each of us is governed [beherrscht] in such cases by deep-
rooted [tief begründeten] internal prejudices [Vorliebene], into whose hands our speculation
unwittingly plays [denen er mit seiner Spekulation unwissentlich in die Hände arbeitet: to suit someone,
serve someone's purpose]. Since we have such good grounds for being distrustful, our attitude
towards the results of our own deliberations [der eigenen Denkbemühungen] cannot well be other
than one of cool benevolence. I hasten to add, however, that self-criticism such as this is far
from binding one to any special tolerance [zu besonderer Toleranz] towards dissentient opinions. It
is perfectly legitimate to reject remorselessly theories which are contradicted by the very first
steps in the analysis of observed facts [in der Analyse der Beobachtung], while yet being aware at the
same time that the validity of one's own theory is only a provisional one. We need not feel
greatly disturbed in judging our speculation [Spekulation] upon the life and death instincts by the
fact [würde es uns wenig stören] that so many bewildering and obscure [unanschauliche] processes
occur in it – such as one instinct being driven out by another or an instinct turning from the
ego to an object, and so on. This is merely due to our being obliged to operate with the
scientific terms, that is to say with the figurative language, peculiar [der eigenen Bildersprache] to
psychology (or, more precisely, to depth psychology). We could not otherwise describe the
processes in question at all, and indeed we could not have become aware of them [ja, würden sie
gar nicht wahrgenommen haben]. The deficiencies in our description would probably vanish if we
were already in a position to replace the psychological terms by physiological or chemical ones.
It is true that they too are only part of a figurative language; but it is one with which we have
long been familiar and which is perhaps a simpler one as well. »1

THE IMPORTANT EVENT.

The reference shifts all along this text. The theory of drives in its third state is indeed
what is at issue throughout. But the idea to be « pursued » is, in this theory, that of the
repetition compulsion as a fundamental law of drive processes; the impassibility [würde es uns
wenig stören] before a potential accusation of thinking fantastically, as a free wanderer, is asserted,
at the end of this text, with reference to the speculations on life and death drives.

We are at the end of section VI of Jenseits, Freud has just borrowed, most fantastically, to
be sure, from philosophers, poets and biologists, in order to support his hypothesis of drive
regression. What is this hypothesis? That all drives are repetitive, have no other purpose than
reestablishing a prior, lost state, a state approximately devoid of tension. And that thus it is not the
accomplishment of desire which constitutes the end of drive activity, but the return to this
state, even though the process might be painful. Freud based himself on, or made a pretext of,
 3
four « examples » of repetition: transference in the analytical cure, dreams in traumatic
neuroses, children's play, compulsions of destiny.

But another concern grafted itself onto this theoretical outline: if all drives are repetitive,
then the doctrine of drives must be monist (as is Jung's and are those of all philosophers) and
that is out of the question: whence and how would neurosis proceed if all drives aimed to
reestablish one and only one type of state? It will thus be necessary to imagine two state
qualities: one, death, is the total elimination of tension; the other, on the contrary, is the state of
a living organism at rest, not devoid of tension, but expending a minimal or optimal amount of
energy to maintain itself. In truth, Freud is not all that clear in the attribution of functions to
the two drive principles.

What, in fact, did Freud's incredulity or his lack of conviction have to do with? The
repetition hypothesis or that of duality? Rather the latter. Again, one can produce observations
of facts of repetition exceeding the pleasure principle and therefore implying a power of
recurrence independent of this principle (and, in Freud's view, more archaic than it). Drive
duality, by contrast, is not and cannot be observed (and perhaps even not understood,
unanschauliche): life activity always covers that of the death drives; the only thing one ever hears
is « the rumor of Eros. » Death drives must therefore be invented without the support of
observable facts. An enigma must accordingly be invented as well, and accepted: it is not only
that two types of states repeat themselves, but also the event of their difference. The name that
event bears is sexuality: gap, cam lift that would bring the index of tensions not to the zero of
death, but to the energetic level of life, thus delaying death, a matter of speed.

Things are quite clear, except that the lift itself remains unexplained: « But what is the
important event [welches wichtige Ereignis] in the development of living substance which is being
repeated [wiederholt] in sexual reproduction, or in its forerunner, the conjugation of two protista?
We cannot say; and we should consequently feel relieved if the whole structure of our
argument [Gedankenaufbau] turned out to be mistaken. The opposition between the ego or death
instincts and the sexual or life instincts would then cease to hold [entfallen] and the compulsion
to repeat would no longer possess the importance [Bedeutung] we have ascribed to it. » [ibid., p. 46
(p. 38)] The enigmatic event takes over in the 1920 discourse from that which in the 1890's had
been identified as what was called the seduction of children by adults: this initial « narration, »
this first « edifice of ideas » already pointed to the effect of an excess of excitations, and thus of
tension to link these, supervening in the peace of innocence or, rather, in the inertia of what is
not « ripe. »

Epistemologically speaking, we have here a scarcely credible theory: one of the entities it
produces not only has no fact whatsoever to support it, but also requires that an event be
postulated, the event of a dissociation, a departure. Now, what can an event be in theoretical
discourse? Its blind spot, that which its function is precisely to reabsorb. The event belongs to
narrative discourse; no matter what the narratologists say, it is its mainspring, its beginning and
thus its end: the « once upon a time » of the event bars the « universally valid » of theory. Freud
 4
says: « We cannot say [das sagen] this event, » and thus he says the event, he maintains it outside
theoretical discourse, as a referent the meaning of which cannot be produced internally, in the
closure of this discourse, or as a partition (life and death) that precedes reasons and posits
them. Properly speaking, there is no opposition, Gegensatz, between life and death drives,
opposition being the thinkable and, above all, the mainspring of thought par excellence, the
thinking; there is the event, which belongs to the Wanderung, the voyage.

Let us recall Freud's prefatory remarks to the English edition of Varendonck's The
Psychology of Day-Dreams (1921): « For that reason I think it is advisable, when establishing a
distinction between the different modes of thought-activity, not to utilize the relation to
consciousness in the first instance, and to designate the day-dream, as well as the chains of
thought studied by Varendonck, as freely wandering or phantastic thinking, in opposition to
intentionally directed reflection. »2 The final state of the doctrine of drives, could it not itself be
a freely wandering or fantastic thinking, a Gedankengang, a march of ideas wholly different from
« scientificity »? From a theoretical standpoint, it does little to convince, says Freud, but the
affect of conviction is of little importance here, he adds. That is the point. This wanderer is an
apathetic.

INDISCERNIBLE EFFECTS.

Thus the epistemological inconsistency does not stop Freud. He does not even write his
way out of it with the usual trick, i.e.: time will tell if I was right or wrong; or, as he does at the
end with the description of drive processes [Vorgänge]: one is condemned to provisional
uncertainty by the language employed, that most colorful language of depth psychology. No,
when it comes to the new duality of drives, he does not extirpate himself from his
inconsistency at all, he remains with it, he intends to go on with it, to persist in it. On what
basis, according to what Stimmung?

Normally, a theory is accompanied by a specific affect: conviction. There are

testimonies, attestations, backed up by observations, allowing for the constitution of a kind of
discourse (a narrative, for instance) inducing credence, on the part not only of the addressee,
but also on that of the addressor, which implies not that this discourse is universally valid, but
at least that it pertains to the domain in which the question of its validity can and must be
raised. Conviction is the affect corresponding to the closure of the enquiry, to the filing of
conclusions. Vocabulary of the court. (Very different from that used by a Husserl at that time).
One produces the exhibits, one pleads. The theoretician is an attorney. There is a rhetoric of
scholarly discourse; its economic principle is the effect of conviction, which, unlike the effect
of persuasion (the age-old Peitho), cannot be obtained by working « directly » on the affectivity
of the addressee. To convince, himself to start with, the theoretician-attorney must endow his
discourse with certain properties, including the formal properties of internal consistency and
completeness in relation to the field of reference. There will thus be at least figures or turns of
rigorousness, others of exactness. And many more yet,3 that in principle have nothing to do
 5
with knowledge and probably remain unconscious for the users. The affect of conviction is
obtained on condition that this battery of loci be used.

When Freud ponders the hypothesis of the two drive principles, he begins by
questioning his Stimmung: am I affectively convinced? The affect that signals, if not the validity
of the hypothesis, at least its existence as a theoretical hypothesis subject to discussion, is it
present? After replying no, he corrects himself: I don't know whether I am convinced.

Is this tepidity in certainty? It is very much something else. The new drive theory
includes an effect of uncertainty, insuppressible, some of the practical implications of which must
appear to be redoubtable to any therapeutics. In its two previous states, the doctrine of drives
revolved around the opposition between two instances: need/sexuality (or reality/pleasure), then
I/object. Symptoms could be read as so many conflicts and compromises between the two
functions fulfilled respectively by the two instances. Dream analysis as a whole had been
predicated on this opposition. To each instance pertained a function, e.g. accomplishment of
desire versus satisfaction of needs. (Other formulations were possible). Those dualisms gave
one, or so one believed, a principle for deciphering symptoms.

But if the dualism becomes that of principles of functioning and not of instances, how can
the effects of these principles be discerned in the symptoms, how can this or that established
fact be assigned to the former rather than to the latter? The conflict between life and death
drives is not a war between two instances, it does not generate contradictions; the effects of the
principle named death drive are always dissimulated within the others, those of Eros. What does
this dissimulation consist in? In that the effects of each principle are indiscernible from the
effects of the other.

Take Dora's respiratory symptom. Is it due to life or death drives? Undecidable within
the last doctrine. If it spoke, what would it say? First of all, undoubtedly I live, because the
symptom is well, like a microorganism resistant to all « external » aggression, including that
which can emanate from the « organic body » of Dora. It would also say I kill, I kill it, the
« organic body » that I threaten with asphyxia and mutism. If one objects that the discourse's
reference has shifted from one statement to the other (hysterical microorganism in the first,
« organic body » in the second), one will continue: the respiratory symptom still says I am dying
or I live dead and it is the death drives that, referring then to the microorganism as the inviable,
disclose in it nevertheless a kind of monstrous regulation; and finally I revive it, the organism, by
forcing it to increase its metabolism in order to meet the challenge I put it up against: Dora,
will she not go to see Freud? The « cure » is it not a reactivation of the exchanges of the
« body » with its environment? Now it is Eros that disrupts the body of reference, but for the
purposes of more life, more differentiation. Thus four statements blocked together, such that it
is undecidable whether the symptom is governed by one principle of drive functioning or the
other. Tonsillitis, aphonia, hoarseness, asthma, all « signify » both life and death.
 6
Yet is this not to say enough, for it would lead to concluding quite simply: they are
ambivalent. But it is not a matter of ambivalence. Life and death, as drive principles, fulfill
respectively the two same functions, let us say regulating and deregulating, for instance. Life is self-
regulating when the symptom « says » I live, but when it « says » I revive it, while it is what is at it
again, since the effect is « erotic, » said effect is disruptive, hetero-deregulating nonetheless; and
conversely, death drives disrupt the organism (I kill it), but also have the strange regulating
effect that is the monstrosity of the I live dead, of the inviable live. Exchange of the « functions.
» or, if one prefers, of the effects, of one principle with those of the other. This is something
altogether different from ambivalence; it precludes any conviction, for it makes it impossible to
plead a cause, i.e. an established and stable relation between an effect and an instance.

If the hypothesis of the two drive principles cannot bring about belief, that of Freud
himself, it is because it is in obvious contravention with an axiom indispensable to the
discourse of knowledge, at least such as Freud and his time imagined it, that of the decidability
of causes. Economic dualism in its ultimate form is not a dualism; the two drive functionings,
identical in nature (repetition), overlap in their effects; their difference, which is, in principle, a
difference in regime, cannot be circumscribed. Freud himself bears witness to this when he
remains uncertain as to the designation he should give to the level at which the index of tension
brings the « body » back: is it zero, the minimum, the optimum? His entire text hesitates on this
decisive point. At the beginning (p. 9): « The mental apparatus endeavors [Bestreben] to keep the
quantity of excitation present in it as low as possible or at least to keep it constant. » (emphasis
mine). In the middle (p. 55): « The dominating tendency of mental life [als die herrschende Tendenz
des Seelenlebens], and perhaps of nervous life in general, is the effort [das Streben] to reduce
[Herabsetzung], to keep constant [Konstanterhaltung], or remove [Aufhebung] internal tension due to
stimuli [der inneren Reizspannung] » (emphasis mine); here the three indices are given in a jumble,
not as identical, although the level this push is effectively meant to establish is a matter
indifferent, possibly even undecidable; now, the acknowledgement of this Streben, Freud adds, is
« one of our strongest reasons for believing [glauben] in the existence of death instincts. » At the
very end, again (p. 62): « The pleasure principle, then, is a tendency [Tendenz] operating in the
service of a function whose business is to free the mental apparatus entirely from excitation
[erregungslos] or to keep the amount of excitation [den Betrag des Erregung] in it constant or to keep it as
low as possible » (emphasis mine).

One could only be surprised by all these « oder. » by the absence of determinity, if one
did not appreciate the significance of this last theory of drives in the theoretical « field »
itself: hesitation in the discourse of knowledge merely parallels the dissimulation of principles
in the economic reference of the discourse. It is thus not a « want » or a lack of conviction that
the 1920 economist experiences, but an undecidability of affect, a positive potency of not
knowing whether he believes in his theory or not, a potency of affirmation alien to the question
of belief. From the outset, Freud declared the domain of tensions and relaxations (the
economic) « [...] the most obscure and inaccessible region of the mind, and, since we cannot
avoid contact with it, the least rigid hypothesis, it seems to me, will be the best [die lockerste
Annahme]. » Lockerheit, laxity is the property of psychic energy that Freud put forward in the
 7
Vorlesungen (1917) and again in Das Ich und das Es (1923), to account for artistic activity as a
correlate of the malleability of repressions; in the latter text, he associates it with the
Verschiebbarkeit of energy, its displaceability, the fact that it is not cathected. The distinctive
features required here for the theory of drives are thus the same as those Freud describes for
the « psychic apparatus » of the artist.

One could be tempted to declare the laxity of the economic theory to be second, seeing
that it accompanies a return on the theoretical « body » of the same dissimulation as that which
the theory points to on the drive « body. » But that would be an impropriety: this return is not
one; the fact is that this theoretical discourse makes its appearance here, taken initially
according to its specific affect, as one of the surfaces of a vast drive « body » and that the
epistemological uncertainty obtaining within it is none other than the undecidability of the
effects on this « body » in general. In these few lines of Freud's, theory all of a sudden ceases to
have anything to do with the true and the false; what concerns it above all is how much pathos
it comprises or not. The difference invoked at the end of Jenseits, under the guise of a poet,
between flying and limping, is not of method but of passion: claudication is an affection relating
to space and time, it is the wobbling extension and the stuttering duration; the limper does not
know whether he believes in space and time, whereas the flyer does: he is convinced.

PASSIONATE APATHY.

A theory of the indiscernibles takes shape only according to an undecidable affect. Far
from being able to elicit conviction, it opens up a new affective region: that of apathy. Freud
couldn't convince anyone, to begin with himself, that there are death drives infiltrated in life
drives. He appeals rather to irresponsibility, to the potency of disregarding the demand for
conviction. If he pleads a case, it is thus in another court than that of the community of
savants. Jenseits does not belong to the genre of scientific discourse. The third theory of drive
« duality » eludes the theoretical and practical requisites of the savant genre. It is a fiction-theory.
Its specific affect is impassivity, and not conviction. Impassivity must be understood to mean the
impossibility of being affected by the yes or the no of conviction.

Diablerie in matters of theory (most remote from diabolism) would consist in one's
preferring to let loose the potency of inventing rather than to consolidate by way of proofs the
innovations one proposes. Yet is that not saying enough: one prefers to put oneself in the
situation of having to invent rather than to remain in the position of having to present proof.
One thus « decides » to cease to reply, one makes oneself irresponsible, one excludes oneself
from savant society. Theoretical intelligence makes itself insensitive to arguments, to sic et nons, to
the values of knowledge, to mathemes. It desires the new, nur aus wissenschaftlicher Neugierde; but
then what a singular « scientificity » it is, which yields (sich hingeben) to this lust (the radical gierde
is very strong: Du sollsts nicht begehren deines Nächsten Weib), which indulges in this lust for the new,
as in debauchery! Debauchery in matters of knowledge is to pursue the idea soweit er führt, as far
as it leads, to desire the soweit, the very space where the idea pays out insofar as that space does
not stop opening up, the thread of the idea, its Gang, unfolding before it new surfaces of
 8
thought, possibilities of unprecedented statements. Scientificity is parodied thus: the discourse
one holds, that Freud holds, continues to have a reference (the drive economy), statements
appear to keep complying with the precepts of the denotative function, but the reference –
namely the death drives, and thus the drive dualism itself – can no longer be opposed to any
statement for the « reason » that it cannot be exhibited in observations, nor give rise to counter
statements. Scientific discourse lacking an attestable reference, which at one go sweeps away
the privilege that observation arrogates to itself in the statute of science. And the internal
consistency of this discourse is, as was seen, no less solicited than its referential function. In the
place of this « seriousness. » a passion for the new.

But an apathetic passion. Apathy is a Sadian word that Klossowski comments

magnificently in The Philosopher-Villain. If Freud speaks of « diablerie. » if he admits to
« surrendering himself » to curiosity for ideas, if he confesses a desire to go along with them
and follow their course (as though with young ladies strolling by), and if he declares at the same
time not at all to have sold his soul to the devil and only to adventure in fiction-theory out of
curiosity (already at the beginning of section IV, ibid., p. 18: « What follows is speculation, often
far-fetched speculation, which the reader will consider or dismiss according to his individual
predilection. It is further an attempt to follow out an idea, consistently, out of curiosity [aus
Neugierde] to see where it will lead [wohin dies führen wird] »), it is because this parody of science
resembles Sadian « libertinism. » The latter also requires impassivity in the most excessive
desires and in their most adventurous exploration. Freud deals here with the surfaces of
language of knowledge as Sade deals with those of skins: to follow a train of thoughts is more
than following the course of drives: it is to extend it, and coldly. Sade said that anyone
endowed with singular tastes is sick, and Freud that any theoretician without proof, without
Zeugnis, has found his master (beherrscht) in deep predilections (Vorliebene). Hence Sadian
libertinism of skins and Freudian libertinism of words do indeed want coldness, but also the
most incommunicable pathos in coldness: singularity. The Sadian is a monster, not so much on
account of his tastes, for there is no universality of tastes, no norm to appraise, condemn and
possibly correct such singularity; he is a monster in that he adds to the affirmation of his
singular tastes an encyclopaedic curiosity for what the systematically complete irritation of
voluptuous surfaces (eine Versuch zur konsequenten Ausbeutung einer Idee) can allow one to
experience. Blocked thus inside his libidinal apparatus by his tastes, but running way beyond it by
his will to Aufklärung of drives. Both devil, owing to pathos, and advocatus diaboli, by parody, or
the reverse. In any case, it is in the nature of the devil to have an advocate: diabolism
masquerading as diablerie. Or the reverse. Likewise, this Freud of the pseudo-theory (the third
drive « dualism ») is stuck in an apparatus known as the desire for truth, which doesn't keep
him from clearing off, while phlegmatically plundering ideas. Repetitive preferences work
within the apparatus from the moment that it is no longer restrained, tested, corrected by
observation; encounters and inventions play their part in the adventure of « curiosity »;
compliance and non-compliance with the rules of savant discourse, occurring together, fiction-
theory dissimulates itself in theory, which it dissimulates in return.
 9
Was that but a moment in the theoretical destiny of Freudianism? Is it in general only an
epistemological moment, that of imagination in the work of inventing hypotheses? Is this
apathy ephemeral, must it give way to a return of conviction? The fate that the final drive
« dualism » will suffer in Freud's later works, most notably in Civilization and its Discontents, i.e.
the reconstitution of a scarcely dissimilating opposition, quite simply ambivalent, between love
and aggressiveness, seems to validate a « dialectical » reading of this apathy: it led Freud back to
convictions, or so they say. Too bad for this Freud and his epigones.

THE PARODY

The big thing for us at this point is to destroy theory, and that cannot be done with a
vow to silence. On the contrary: silence marches in step with theoretical terror, it is its
accomplice and guarantor. They always says to us: if you do not speak to tell the truth, be quiet.
In this passage from Jenseits, Freud does not tell himself for an instant: since I don't have what I
would need to make a theory fit to be presented (consistent and saturated), then I will keep
quiet. He does not give in at all to the intimidation of the « What cannot be said must be passed
over in silence »; he intends, on the contrary, to speak all the same and that his speech be not a
derision but a parody of theory. The destruction of theory can be brought about solely
according to this parody; it in no way consists in criticizing theory, since critique itself is a
theoretical Moment that one cannot expect to instigate the destruction of theory. To destroy
theory is to make one, several pseudo-theories; the theoretical crime is to fabricate fiction-
theories.

Freud desires Lockerheit, or laxity, as well for his discourse as for the unconscious of
artists: does he mean to shirk the responsibilities of knowledge? No, not to dodge them, but to
play and get round them as a devil and devil's advocate. Get round them by playing them. Is it
requested of artists that they carry the weight of the world on their shoulders, the burden of
problems that those in charge are confronted with but know not how to solve? That has
happened and happens yet; they themselves sometimes ask for it. Let us wail. Not in the name
of a conception of gratuitous, disinterested art, for art (which was in many respects Freud's);
but on the contrary because art, like science, is only another name for displaceability and
voyage.

Fictitious-theoretical activity will carry into philosophical discourse the same potency of
wandering as that operating in the arts and sciences. The real priests are the theoreticians, they
are the ones who curb this potency, demand its sedentarization and see to it that it blames itself
when it errs beyond the norms. Even in the Freud of 1920 can you detect this remorse. Let us
listen to Sade: « [... do] immediately, in cold blood, that very thing which, done in the throes of
passion, has been able to cause you remorse [...]. » One has to reaccomplish apathetically the
Freudian crime, too timid yet, committed against theoretical terrorism. That is what is at stake
from now on, not only against the petty doctors who believe they exercise their prestige over
the intellectual world with theoreticity, but against all that, in this world, intimidates and kills in
 10
the name of the great mathemes: these are but the fruit of deeply anchored predilections, hiding
behind the alibi of a capital name.

One last word: if one exiles oneself from the society of savants, must one renounce
intervening in it, criticizing and arguing? Not at all. Theoretical apathy is not a depressive state,
it goes together with the greatest intransigence towards the discourses that submit to the law of
true and false. No tolerance for that which, in this field, does not fulfill the demands that define
it. Freud sees this very clearly. Do not hope, therefore, that the artists of fiction-theory will
leave the stage clear for truth-theory: on the contrary, they will also be present in this old battle
and they will joust. Thus the dissimulation will be complete, the parody not allowing itself to be
distinguished (in terms of true or false) from its pretended « model. » The only ones who will
not lose their heads and hearts in this are those who are cured of theoretical pathos, the
apathetics.

Translated by Roger McKeon

NOTES
1 Jenseits des Lustprinzips, G.W. XIII, pp. 63-65. (Beyond the Pleasure Principle, translated and newly
edited by James Strachey, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1961, pp. 52-54)
2 G.W., XIII, p.440 [ The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, p.

272 (The Psychology of Day-Dreams, p. 10)]

3 See Bruno Latour and Paolo Fabbri, « La rhétorique du discours scientifique, » Actes de la

recherche en sciences sociales, 13 (February 1977), pp. 81-95.