From autoimmune resistance to multiplicity in psychoanalysis

Abstract

This article discusses resistance in the psychoanalytic movement based on the provocation, set out by philosopher Jacques Derrida, that there would be an autoimmune resistance of psychoanalysis, thereby causing it to resist itself. The aim is to extrapolate the elaborations on the resistance to analytical treatment, which is more commonplace within the scope of the psychoanalytic clinic, in order to delve into the ethical-political discussion regarding the possibility of psychoanalysis resisting the tyranny of the One. In this way, psychoanalysis would resist the temptation to commit to sovereignty or cruelty. Finally, it is intended to assert the power of multiplicity in psychoanalytic discourse, regardless of how it constantly wavers between the expectation of establishing a hegemonic discourse, and the asserting of multiplicity, resisting the One.

Keywords:
resistance; psychoanalysis and politics; Derrida.

Resumo

O artigo discute a resistência no movimento psicanalítico a partir da provocação do filósofo Jacques Derrida de que haveria uma resistência autoimunitária da psicanálise, fazendo-a resistir, portanto, a si própria. Busca-se extrapolar as elaborações mais corriqueiras no âmbito da clínica psicanalítica sobre a resistência ao tratamento analítico, para colocar em pauta a discussão ético-política sobre a possibilidade de a psicanálise resistir à tirania do Um. Dessa maneira, a psicanálise resistiria ainda à tentação ao compromisso com a soberania ou com a crueldade. Por fim, pretende-se afirmar a potência do múltiplo no discurso psicanalítico, a despeito de seu movimento sempre pendular ora como expectativa de constituir um discurso hegemônico, ora como afirmativo do múltiplo, resistindo ao Um.

Palavras-chave:
resistência; psicanálise e política; Derrida

Résumé

Cet article parle de la résistance dans le mouvement psychanalytique à partir de la provocation du philosophe Jacques Derrida qu’il y aurait une résistance auto-immune de la psychanalyse, ce qui la fait donc résister à elle-même. L‘objectif est d‘extrapoler les élaborations sur la résistance au traitement analytique, plus ordinaires au sein de la clinique psychanalytique, pour mettre en question la discussion éthique et politique à propos de la possibilité de la psychanalyse résister à la tyrannie de l‘Un. Ainsi, la psychanalyse résiste encore à la tentation d’attachement à la souveraineté ou la cruauté. Enfin, nous avons l‘intention de faire valoir la puissance du multiple dans le discours psychanalytique, malgré son mouvement toujours pendulaire soit comme attendu de constituer un discours hégémonique, soit comme affirmative du multiple, en résistant à l’Un.

Mots-clés:
résistance; psychanalyse et politique; Derrida

Resumen

En este artículo se analiza la resistencia en el movimiento psicoanalítico a partir de la provocación del filósofo Jacques Derrida de que habría una resistencia autoinmune del psicoanálisis, lo que le hace resistir, por lo tanto, a sí mismo. Se busca extrapolar las elaboraciones más corrientes acerca de la resistencia al tratamiento analítico en el ámbito de la clínica psicoanalítica, a poner en tela de juicio el debate ético y político sobre la posibilidad de que el psicoanálisis resista a la tiranía del Uno. De este modo, el psicoanálisis resistiría aun a la tentación de compromiso con la soberanía o la crueldad. Finalmente, tenemos la intención de hacer valer la potencia del múltiple en el discurso psicoanalítico, pese a su movimiento siempre pendular ora como expectativa para constituir un discurso hegemónico, ora como afirmativa del múltiple, resistiendo al Uno.

Palabras clave:
resistencia; psicoanálisis y política; Derrida

“It is the nous, it is the pneuma, it is the ego sum que sum,

is death, it is that damned number One”

(Augusto dos Anjos, 1998, p. 19)

There are many studies that have focused on the dialogue between psychoanalysis and philosophy, which include the formulations by philosopher Jacques Derrida, protagonist of the so-called philosophy of deconstruction, which seeks to undo a hegemonic system of thought, whose work refers to that of the unconscious. This is the objective of For What Tomorrow . . .: A Dialogue, which proposes understanding deconstruction as a means of “resisting the tyranny of the One”⁴ (Derrida & Roudinesco, 2004, p. 9). The presence of psychoanalysis in the formulations of Derrida - mainly based on Freudian thinking - is regarded as an important instrument in his project of deconstruction.

This article seeks to draw the consequences from part of these works to undertake a discussion regarding the concept of resistance, as it is understood in the field of psychoanalysis. This endeavor will be guided, in particular, by that which can be understood as a provocation made by Derrida towards the psychoanalytic movement when referring to an autoimmune resistance of psychoanalysis, as it resists itself (Derrida, 2001a, p. 14). The goal is to discuss this premise and, therefore, examine to what extent psychoanalysis can overcome this resistance to itself.

To present the bases of this discussion, the approach chosen was to circumscribe, albeit briefly, the more general framework of Derrida’s dialogue with Freudian thought. Indeed, the appropriation made by this philosopher of Freud’s theses makes it possible to do justice to Freud in the proposal, as he did postulate a dialogue sectioned in three periods (Derrida & Foucault, 2001) in the debate with Michel Foucault on the purpose of a History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (Foucault, 1972/2010).

Although the possibility of deepening this discussion exceeds the limits of this article, it is important to highlight Freud’s pivot role in it, as Foucault’s proposal of a history of madness would not have been possible without developing the ideas conceived by the founder of psychoanalysis. The focus is Derrida’s discourse on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of the book in question (Foucault, 1972/2010), a motto for the event organized in Paris by the Société internationale d’histoire de la psychiatrie et de la psychanalyse, a initiative from Elisabeth Roudinesco and René Major.

In regards to the way in which madness is understood, Derrida paints Freud in tragic colors, to the detriment of his approach of the critical conception of madness that would have, from Derrida’s perspective, been used by Foucault. Freud would have shown himself to be “hospitable to madness . . . who talks it out with death” (Derrida, 1996b, p. 130, author’s emphasis),⁵ focusing on the death drive (Freud, 1920/1976), a concept which would have been left out in Foucault’s analysis.

Despite this statement, Derrida does not cease in his criticism of Freudian thought, or rather, a certain Freud who would have still remained bound to the rhetoric of classical metaphysics, which has meta-psychological concepts as its main representatives, targets of Derrida’s disapproval. However, as previously mentioned from the beginning, the purpose of using his thoughts in this article is not to discuss the different moments of his work, neither the different approaches to and the distancing from Freud’s formulations, but rather to stick to the important statements concerning resistance, including those attributed to psychoanalysis itself. It seems that this philosopher, as much as psychoanalysts can be interested in the history of the psychoanalytic movement, was greatly interested in this particular type of resistance, a problem inherent to the last few years of its elaboration, characterized by ethics and politics (Birman, 2008).

Thus, the discussion undertaken here will feature the most expressive texts on the subject within the context studied, namely, Résistances (1996a), resulting from the 1991 conference on the notion of analysis; Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (2001a), product of a conference held in 1994 in London, with memory being the theme; and Psychoanalysis Searches the States of Its Soul: The Impossible Beyond of a Sovereign Cruelty (2001b), originated from his participation in the Estates General of Psychoanalysis meeting in Paris, held in 2000.

In 1991, Derrida (1996a) states that his goal is not to treat the problematic of resistances erected before psychoanalysis - studied by Freud himself (Freud, 1926/1976) -, or resistance to analysis - a theme considered as absolutely commonplace in works devoted to the psychoanalytic clinic - but rather a resistance of psychoanalysis to itself, which he understands as inherent to the very concept of resistance to analysis. Ultimately, he does not fail to address the issue of resistance to analysis, under the different modalities outlined by the Freudian discourse of what would oppose the analytical experience, although he does so in an indirect and torturous manner, which can be considered characteristic of his formulations.

Resistance to analysis is, therefore, addressed by Derrida (1996a), despite the author himself showing resistance to the concept. This project leads him to pose some questions: firstly, if that which resists analysis would it not also resist the concept itself. As a result, he also questions whether or not all resistance to analysis would be interpretable, when addressing the limits of the interpretative technique. Finally, the philosopher questions if there would be another form of resistance, as well as another concept of resistance to analysis. His musings lead him to question if another concept of analysis would exist.

The philosopher uses Freudian thinking to identify a resistance taken as an obstacle to the revelation of an underlying, hidden truth, a secret to be revealed by the analyst. It is a resistance to the solution proposed by the analyst, the solution that one would arrive at thanks to interpretation, a concept of resistance that is more suited to the scenario of the first Freudian topography, in which psychoanalytic technique focused on making the unconscious conscious, in the hopes of overcoming the resistance of the self that denies access to the repressed.

However, it is not the only concept of resistance that is found in Freud, as the author also recognized that it would be associated with an elusive excess, inserting the theme of resistance in a force field that demands a practical, effective and affective analysis of it. This is how Derrida extols the new layers that Freud assigns the figure of resistance with, following the conceptualization of death drive, which are capable of moving his work away from classical analytic tradition, a movement that would be intensified by the Freudian assumption of a compulsion, towards repetition (Freud, 1920/1976).

The resistance revealed by compulsion to repetition is privileged by Derrida in his deconstruction of discourse - and also of the concept itself - of resistance to analysis. According to him, it is an irreducible “absolute” resistance (Derrida, 1996a, p. 37) that “resists analysis in the form of nonresistance” (Derrida, 1996a, p. 38). It is an incomprehensible resistance that eludes interpretation and any attempts of articulating it, even as resistance, in its classic character of contraposition. It is a form of resistance that appeals to a form of clinical management that goes beyond the interpretation that seeks to make the unconscious conscious, pointing to the requirement of perlaboration, as Freud named it himself (1914/1969) in his discussion on the psychoanalytic technique. It is, according to Derrida (1996a), the resistance shown when the “ideal, conceptual and philosophical-theoretical resistance” (p. 37) is overcome, thus, a form of resistance that exceeds the more common conception of opposition to something or someone (Rabinovich, 2007).

In characterizing this uncharacteristic form of resistance, Derrida uses the figure of Bartleby, Herman Melville’s character (Melville, 1852/2000), commonly evoked in essays dealing with resistance, among which Gilles Deleuze’s stands out (1997). In his motto I would prefer not to, Bartleby deconstructs the binary logic that supports the pairs of activity or passivity, acceptance or opposition, yes or no. In his resistance which is not presented as such, Bartleby blurs the boundaries of the analyzable and escapes the expectations of an interpretative technique that would seek to unveil the unconscious. A role commonly attributed to resistance: “Resistance of psychoanalysis - to psychoanalysis” (Derrida, 1996a, p. 38, emphasis added).

The boundaries of who analyzes who become blurred, a path pursued by Derrida to try and answer the questions proposed by the philosopher: what resists analysis also resists the concept of resistance to analysis, thus an important ally in his project of deconstruction is created; not all resistance would be interpretable, as there is another form of resistance which is irreducible and absolute, that not even psychoanalysis can interpret; finally, it is when trying to apprehend a form of resistance that is not presented as such, within the realm of the interpretable and representable, that psychoanalysis resists itself. Derrida states that this type of resistance is already embedded in the concept of resistance to analysis, seeing an analytical evaluation precisely of that which cannot be seized and for which analysis is intended.

Autoimmunity resistance in psychoanalysis

From the deconstruction of the concept of resistance to analysis, Derrida arrives at the concept of resistance of psychoanalysis, when it resists itself in response to an autoimmune process. In order to extract the necessary consequences of this statement, it is important to understand what the author meant by autoimmunity, a term which is recurring in his statements. Taken from the biological referential, the term refers to processes in which the body recognizes its own cells as harmful and activates mechanisms to defend itself, and thereby destroy them. Derrida (1996c) proposes the extension of the concept to characterize a logic found in other areas in which the alleged immunity would be the object to be immunized, whereas the protection would be the target against that which is supposed to be protected.

This logic was identified, for example, in the analysis on “terrorism” - evoked by Derrida (2003a) between quotation marks - on the occasion of the fateful and much-talked-about attack to the twin towers in Manhattan on September 11, 2001. The idea that a fight against “terrorism”, a pragmatic type of speech typical of the policy of the then president George W. Bush, would be a symptom of an autoimmune process which introduced into American society a restriction of the Democratic State of Law and its witch hunt character.

Currently, the theme of the fight against “terrorism” has been updated in response to the recent events in Paris, on the no less fateful Friday of November 2015 in which simultaneous attacks led to the death of 130 people. In response to these acts, the then president François Hollande decided to attack Syria, as well as intensify France’s internal security policy, thereby militarizing the social space. This space is marked by the massive presence of immigrants whose traditions and memories remain a challenge to the need for integration on the part of the French state.

Derrida did not have the opportunity to comment on the current geopolitical scenario, but, in regards to Bush’s actions around the time of the September 11 attacks, he believes that against an enemy who was supposedly an outsider, the president brought about a war against himself. This mechanism was also identified by Derrida in psychoanalysis, personified in the figure of an autoimmune resistance, which was one of the privileged objects of the speech given during the Estates General of Psychoanalysis meeting in 2000. Convoked by an international committee in 1997, the Estates General meeting aimed to discuss the fate of psychoanalysis at the end of the last century using this very original logic, given the event’s proportions.

That is because it invited those interested in becoming signatories of the initiative using their own name, without any other information including psychoanalysis schools or societies or in response to a call made by a specific institution. In order to resist the “pathology of associations”, as Ferenczi wanted (1911/1981, p. 181), the idea of the meeting came up in which Derrida was asked to participate. He talked about resistance, the resistance of psychoanalysis. Instead of interpreting the Estates General as a safe haven, much to the despair of a supposedly agonizing form of psychoanalysis - criticized in different ways based on multiple discourses that resist it - Derrida sheds light on the subject of the sovereignty that is inherent to the process of institutionalization of the psychoanalytic movement and its correlated cruelty.

In the case of the this particular meeting, the intent to mix up the borders that would place resistance outside the realm of psychoanalysis, and struggle for its salvation, was particularly timely, as Western history became marked by the performing of the Estates General that triggered the French Revolution. Indeed, the new Estates General of psychoanalysis should do without the introduction of a new Committee of Salvation, as well as the bonds that once contained the “revolution”. If one wishes to look for a precipitating crisis in the convocation of the Estates General of Psychoanalysis, it may be then taken as a crisis of the possibility to put such restraints in check, considering “it is through its power to generate crisis that psychoanalysis is threatened and thus enters its own crisis” (Derrida, 2001b, p. 70).

Derrida is accurate when relating the discourse of salvation to an alleged therapy that claims to be able to repair psychoanalysis itself, as “this salutary, sanitary, or immunitary concern simultaneously triggers a gesture of war: the militant would like to cure or save by routing, precisely, a resistance” (Derrida, 2001b, p. 15). Paradoxically, this voluntarism contributes to the thickening of the layers of resistance to psychoanalysis, alongside a “certain onto-theological metaphysics of sovereignty” (Derrida, 2001b, p. 16, author’s emphasis) and cruelty. Derrida evokes a figure of sovereignty to criticize certain institutionalized forms of psychoanalysis, which would be marked by moral, submission, therapeutics - its own or those of its subjects - and the search for salvation. The alibis stemming from this are a real stage for the exercise of cruelty, a confirmation offered by the history of the psychoanalytic movement, as Ferenczi’s attempt to silence exemplifies (Birman, 2014), with him being known as the enfant terrible of psychoanalysis.

When establishing a relationship of commitment to sovereignty and, consequently, to cruelty, psychoanalysis uses alibis in its search of salvation, which produce autoimmune effects (Birman, 2010), ultimately, an autoimmune resistance on the part of a form of “psychoanalysis that also resist itself, that folds back on itself to resist itself” (Derrida, 2001b, p. 14). It needs to resist its own resistance to itself, resulting in the need to suggest another form of resistance, which is different from the one anchored in the assumptions of the French Revolution, i.e., as an external obstacle to be overcome for the success of salvation or for the establishment of a new form of sovereignty. As Foucault anticipated, urging power without a king is necessary (Foucault, 1976/2010), as is resistance without an imaginary opponent to be fought.

The theme of sovereignty was therefore absolutely adjusted to the appeal of a meeting that convoked its members not to speak on behalf of the institutions or, in other words, not to surrender to the logic of the exercise of their cruelty from the introduction of other forms of sovereignty, as the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) has worked on, and is likely to continue working on to this day. The challenge proposed by Derrida to the psychoanalysts who watched his conference in 2000 was the one of deciding whether psychoanalysis would be on the side of internationalism - and the appeal to the sovereignty of states for their management that is correlated to it - or on the side of cosmopolitanism (Birman, 2000). By way of explanation, it should be mentioned that the possibility of conceiving psychoanalysis in the displacement of internationalism to cosmopolitanism is part of a larger project undertaken by Derrida, namely, the opening of new ethical and political possibilities resultant from the weakening of the Nation states - representatives of modern sovereignty - and, consequently, those of the monopoly of violence on their part.

Finally, psychoanalysis would need to resist not itself, but the temptation of the invitation to commitment with either sovereignty or cruelty, ultimately, with the promises of the tyranny of the One for mitigating the power of multiplicity. In the proposition of an impossible beyond sovereign cruelty (Derrida, 2001b), the psychoanalytic discourse is privileged in dealing with the issue of cruelty, since it is a “knowledge without alibi” (Derrida, 2001b, p. 9), guiding that which we call the power of multiplicity of psychoanalysis (Canavêz, 2012).

In his analysis of the Freudian discourse, Derrida understands cruelty as irreducible, a state of the soul that cannot be apprehended, not even by the principles - of pleasure and reality - as suggested by Freud. In accordance with the criticism addressed to a supposedly metaphysical Freud, Derrida proposes the concept of cruelty beyond the beyond (Derrida, 2001b), i.e., closely associated with the death drive that is able to implode the principles and concepts to which Freud would still have been bound. Psychoanalysis would also need to take the undecidable dimension of the targets of the struggle between Eros and the death drive to the extreme (Freud, 1930/1974), facing what Derrida calls the unconditional “experience of a non-negative im-possible” (Derrida, 2001b, p. 85), as well as those found in the figures of hospitality (Derrida, 2003b) and forgiveness (Derrida, 2005), as addressed by Derrida in later works.

For this, the flame that illuminates the “shadows of psychologization, psychiatrization and medicalization” (Birman, 2010, p. 67) that hover above the psychoanalytic movement would need to be kept always lit, under the risk of fomenting the autoimmune resistance that opposes psychoanalysis’ characteristic lack of alibi in its analysis of the unconscious and of irreducible cruelty. In a markedly swinging movement, psychoanalysis would not be fit to dive into the darkness of the alibis that it may elect for itself. According to Major (2002), the result of this endeavor is also not decidable or unequivocal, despite the fact that Derrida’s criticism of the psychoanalytic movement and of the resistance found within it are irrefutable.

Made out of the latter, cruelty is used by Derrida in his interpellations towards the psychoanalytic movement. As cruelty does not become extinct, Freud would have emphasized the indirect character whereby it would be possible to oppose to it, even if victory were not guaranteed (Freud, 1933/1976). However, it would be possible to invest in shortcuts, always indirectly, so that cruelty or destruction, the two names commonly attributed to the death drive, would not be expressed in their respective extreme forms, which demonstrate intolerance to differences, which from now we shall call, following Derrida’s proposal of deconstruction, the tyranny of the One.

Therefore, it is possible to understand how the provocation addressed to the psychoanalytic movement during their Estates General are inserted within a larger problematic of the so-called “archives of evil” (Derrida, 2001a, p. 7) and of the colors of cruelty has taken on in contemporary culture. These archives are part of what was produced by Western culture since the second half of the 20th century, especially from the Shoah and its developments. Now let us return to the preamble of Derrida’s speech on the impossible beyond sovereign cruelty that marks his contribution regarding the archives of evil.

From the tyranny of the One to the power of multiplicity

The emblematic text by Derrida with regard to the archives of evil is titled Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (2001a). It is the result of a conference on memory, initially named The Concept of the Archive: A Freudian Impression, so that the term concept was replaced by fever, a truly significant modification in what concerns the deconstruction carried out by Derrida, namely, of the concept of file and, ultimately, of the very idea of concept.

At this moment, Freudian discourse is once again privileged as Derrida’s ally, thanks to the breadth of the death drive proposition in what concerns the problem of memory. Derrida’s new focus is classical historiography and, more specifically, the aspiration to the search for an ontological source, a material truth, which is why the Freudian text about monotheistic religion (Freud, 1939/1975) and the analysis carried out by historian Yerushalmi (1992) are addressed. More than conceiving a theory about memory, Freud would have achieved an original theory on the archive due to his analogy of the psychic apparatus with the magic block (Freud, 1925/1976).

From this perspective, archive and memory cannot be equated, because the former does not reduce the latter, in that it “will never be memory nor anamnesis in their spontaneous experience” (Derrida, 2001a, p. 22). In other words, while memory would presuppose a material truth to be mined, the archive includes the fissures of this excavation process, in addition to the fact of it being inseparable from the Archon, i.e., the authority that produces and reproduces it.

Derrida dismembers the Greek word arkhê in its two senses: start and command. In the second case, it is an allusion to the Archons, superior magistrates who commanded the laws, whether by constituting or representing them. The Archons were also responsible for the custody of official documents and for the interpretation of such files, a function that Derrida characterizes according to the Archontic principle, through which the archives are gathered and interpreted.

In Freudian work it is possible to find an interesting perspective on memory, its evoking not being complete, i.e., done fully by the conscious system, but through lapses that are subject to unconscious determination. It is thus reasonable to say the fissures identified in the archive put the unequivocal conception of memory at risk - for example, that which is the subject of representation - to be evoked. Freudian thinking is privileged in this sense for enunciating a death drive (of aggression, of destruction) with the purpose of erasing the archive’s traces; ultimately, it is a “drive of loss” (Derrida, 2001a, p. 20), a loss of what could constitute memory. It should be noted that Derrida (2001a) does not bother establishing distinctions between the death, destruction and aggression drives. According to him, it is a three-named drive, a perspective that gives emphasis to its destructive character, and is therefore consonant with the Freudian perspective.

Stressing the anarchic potential of the death drive, as Zaltzman (1998) does, Derrida also refers to it as “anarchontic (we must not forget that the death drive, originary though it may be, is not a principle, as is true of the pleasure and reality principles): the death drive is above all anarchivic” (Derrida, 2001a, p. 21, author’s emphasis). In a single blow, the death drive that was “speculated” by Freud (1920/1976) brings down the rhetoric of principles - as well as of the meta-psychology that bothers Derrida so much - and the claim of a recollection said to be objective and out of power’s reach or, in other terms, the Archontic principle. Derrida goes, as usual, in the opposite direction of the classic interpretation of the archive in the historical and philosophical fields, mainly basing his ideas on expectations of getting to its source through recollection, at the end of which it would be believable to enunciate an unequivocal truth over its existence.

Freud would have also suffered the consequences of this pretension, according to Derrida. According to him, the Freudian discourse regarding the archive would be paradoxical, due to three main reasons. Firstly, despite offering a new perspective on the archive, it did not leave the archaeological aspirations in the search of a material truth completely aside. Moreover, even if he did shed light on the deadly character of the death drive, Freud also revealed himself to be hesitant, in what concerns his classical metaphysical elaborations, before the consequences of the affirmation of an irreducible psyche that is associated with destruction. Finally, despite having problematized the authority inherent to the Archontic principle itself, he did not completely avoid the repetition of the patriarchal logic in his struggle for the salvation of the father figure.

Therefore, Freud would have suffered from archive fever, restless in his eternal search for where the archive would be hidden, a swinging movement between apparently contradictory, or absolutely contradictory, poles -, in case this contradiction lacks the negative character that negates one of the terms of hierarchically built dialectics -, characterizing the Freudian discourse as unstable and ever incomplete, which Derrida acknowledges in the very notion of archive. The death drive is the archive drive, but only to the extent that the experience of archiving is inseparable from erasure, from archive fever.

The concept was replaced by fever: Derrida does not arrive at a concept of archive per se, despite recognizing its lack in Freud; not for lack of ability of both to do so, but only because the archive is just a concept, an impression, hence one of the reasons for the choice of the title of the conference. Differing from the possibility of conceiving the archive as static data, susceptible to evocation without the shadow of the Archon, the object to be deconstructed is not only the classical concept of archive, but the concept itself. Derrida’s thoughts on the deconstruction of the concept are worth noting:

We only have an impression, an insistent impression through the unstable feeling of a shifting figure, of a schema, or of an in-finite or indefinite process. Unlike that a classical philosopher or scholar would be tempted to do, I do not consider this impression, nor the notion of this impression, to be a subconcept, the feebleness of a blurred and subjective preknowledge . . . there are essential reasons for which a concept in the process of being formed always remains inadequate relative to what it ought to be, divided, disjointed between two forces. And this disjointedness has a necessary relationship with the structure of archivization (Derrida, 2001a, p. 44).

A necessary structure in the archivization experience is that it implies erasure. The structure of the archive, says Derrida (2001a), is spectral,⁶ ghostly, with it being impossible to seize it “in the flesh” (Derrida, 2001a, p. 110), in an immutable, enunciable and conceivable identity. The same applies to the Archontic principle, the historical truths built by it and the concept in general itself. Indeed, the concept is constantly shifting “because it is never one with itself” (Derrida, 2001a, p. 110, emphasis added), so that to keep the category of concept, it would be necessary to contemplate its fissures and discontinuities, which could constitute a contradiction.

When speaking of the One, Derrida refers to the traps placed by the forms of unity and totalization, which are closely associated with the Archontic principle that takes upon itself the organization of the archive, a quintessentially violent act itself. There is a quantum of violence inherent to the process of the Archontic constitution of the One: “As soon as there is the One, there is murder, wounding, traumatism. The One guards against/keeps some of the other.” (Derrida, 2001a, p. 100, author’s emphasis) and of the violence associated with the process that constitutes it, being it susceptible of turning against itself.

Here, it is impossible not to allude to the murder of the father of the primitive horde exalted by Freud in order to explain the transition from force, violence, to social contract (Freud, 1913/1974). This place once occupied by the patriarch should have remained empty for the next one to be virtually able of occupying it, were it not for one more victim of violence which, paradoxically, institutes its place. This is the political impasse that arises from (and founder of) the introducing of the law, which Freud, heir of modernity and its impasses, was able to pinpoint.

Returning to the discussion on the authority of the Archontic principle, and therefore, of the concept that the One does to itself, Derrida sheds light on the relationship between authority and violence, as the One makes itself violent to the extent that it retains and erases, at the same time, the injustice that constitutes it as such, thanks to violence. Authority proves itself violent when it rejects the violence that institutes it: “The One makes itself violent. It violates and performs violence on itself but it also institutes itself as violence. It becomes what it is, the very violence - that it does to itself” (Derrida, 2001a, p. 100, author’s emphasis).

It would then be necessary to resist the forgetting of violence and, ultimately, the violence of the pretension of the One, which is inherent to the building of a concept and of a unequivocal perspective of memory or of resistance, of a discourse that the One uses to seize all the authority of the Archontic principle. And could psychoanalysis, after all, get rid of the violence of the One, could it become free from its resistance to itself? Would it be possible for it to recognize (and support) the power of multiplicity?

Final remarks

For the final considerations, it is worth mentioning Derrida’s invitation addressed to the psychoanalytic movement of overcoming the limits of the clinic, which are anchored in the classic setting, in order to exercise its power of transforming

the axioms of the ethical, the juridical, and the political, notably in those seismic places where the theological phantasm of sovereignty quakes and where the most traumatic, [...] the most cruel events of our day are being produced (Derrida, 2001b, p. 18).

This would be, according to the philosopher, the great role of psychoanalysis in the movement that goes through - and at the same time builds - the so-called evil archives.

However, in spite of the “vigilante” role attributed to psychoanalysis, which has the power to break the structures of domination, the hegemonic discourses, it seems that it always moves in alternate directions, advancing and retreating between power and resistance. Thus, despite it being possible to bet on psychoanalysis as a supporter of multiplicity to the detriment of the tyranny of the One, it should be noted that part of the logic that supports multiplicity does not offer a clear response to the question, thus, this impasse remains.

Thus, psychoanalysis can function as a discourse of multiplicity, but, at the same time, it is also necessary to dispose of the violence of the One that dictates the way things work in absolute terms, such as the establishment of a sovereign state (Birman, 2011). It would not be possible to define clearly what would be within the limits of its purview and what would transcend its territory, as well as those authorized to speak on its behalf. From this point of view, the task of delimitation of psychoanalysis should not refuse the violence inherent to this process, with the awareness of how it is always inconclusive and subject to multiple forces, which it must seek, not subsume.

This feature proves to be an unmistakable sign of Freudian work itself, marked by the idea of conflict, a finding in the relationship between the life and death that drives a significant delegate. Indeed, conflict was accepted as an antidote to the tyranny of the One, because, unlike a dialectic relationship in which one of the terms would be subsumed by the other, it is characterized by the inability of an appeasing synthesis, of the conjuration of excess (Gondar, 2006).

Thereby, the amalgam between life and death drives extols a markedly agonistic relationship, in which the power that speaks in favor of multiplicity resides. While the violence of the One advocates in favor of antagonisms that would be overcome by the imposition of the irresistible pole, an agonistic character (Auroux, 1990) extols the impossibility of overcoming that arises from the synthesis, for example, in the hopes of neutralizing the resistances that enable the exercise of heterogeneity.

In short: psychoanalysis can, in its swinging motion, resist the One, “but can it predict with what success and with what results?” (Freud, 1930/1974, p. 171). The question posed by Freud seems to imply that the answer to whether psychoanalysis could get rid of the tyranny of the One - thus supporting the power of multiplicity - is always inconclusive, due to it not being possible to predict the outcome beforehand. The expectation of disposing of the swinging character of psychoanalysis, between the temptation of the One and the affirmation of multiplicity, seems to strengthen its autoimmune resistance, to resume Derrida’s proposition.

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• 4
  The notion of the tyranny of the One can be associated with the criticism that Derrida makes of Western metaphysics, based on binaries where one of the terms overlaps the other in a hegemonic and tyrannical manner. The proposal is to question, rearrange the discourse based on metaphysics. Therefore, his deconstructive endeavor is “undoing, without ever destroying, a hegemonic or dominant system of thought. To deconstruct is in some way to resist the tyranny of the One, of the logos, of (Western) metaphysics, and to do so in the very language in which it is articulated.” (Derrida & Roudinesco, 2004, p. 9).

• 5
  Derrida (1996b) claims risking himself in using the word hospitable (from the French hospitalier), given its derivation from the word hospital, object of severe criticism by Foucault in his history of madness and of the great confinement.

• 6
  The logic of spectrality is one of the constants in Derrida’s work. For more on the subject, see Derrida (1994) and Skinner (2005).

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Sep-Dec 2017

History

• Received
  24 Dec 2015
• Reviewed
  14 Nov 2016
• Accepted
  29 Nov 2016