Cormac Gallagher – The New tyranny of Knowledge – Seminar XVII (1969-70) – Background and Overview
 
THE LETTER 24 (Spring 2002) pages 1-22
 
Introduction Almost halfway through the year, Lacan makes a caustic reference to the just published 50th anniversary issue of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis:
 
If you read the body of work that makes up this anniversary issue of the International Journal, you can understand why the authors congratulate themselves on the solidity displayed over the past 50 years. I would ask you to put it to the test. Take any issue whatsoever in the past 50 years – you will never know its date. It always says the same thing. It is always just as insipid, and since analysis is a preservative, it is also always by the same authors. They congratulate themselves, in short, that these 50 years have clearly confirmed these primary truths: that the mainspring of analysis is goodness, and that, happily, what has become obvious throughout these years, with the progressive effacing of Freud’s discourse is, in particular, the solidity and the glory of a discovery described as the autonomous ego, namely, the conflict-free ego.