Psychoanalysts invest their lives re-inventing the ways in which they deal with their own versions of the real, what jouissance came into play as a way to answer to that particular emergency of the real, and then how to use it; how to put it in the service of our School for example, how to offer something to the non-sense characteristic of our times, and so on. Depending on the case, one by one, the pass teaches us that… once and again, and still…
This time is marked by a Tyche (COVID-19) that has makes us stop our numbness accelerated Automaton. It has makes us stop. Stop our way of living, stop our routines, our habitual way of keep dreaming while we think that we are awake. However, this new reality that we have to wake up -despite of our psychism efforts to keep us asleep- put on the table unthinkable things.
Even though we, psychoanalysts, are aware of the real, aware of its lawless condition, meaningless core, always un-grasped by language, we are trying to introduce some-thing on this chaotic circumstance. The use of language in its status of semblant is no longer a practice specific to psychoanalysts. Maybe the part that still makes us some sort of outlanders of the common use is that we know by our own experience that language touches the body in a very singular way, one by one speaking body.
On this sense, humor doesn’t grasp the real either, but it helps. So here it goes:
It is not a secret that the so-called President of the United States has a very “particular way” to assume his role and function. Usually these, are not separated from his persona, which makes this uncertain time even more uncertain. Among the many unbelievable remarks made by him, -not just during the pandemic- one in particular has caught my attention: he proposes in one of his briefings with an unusual moment of clarity that he has found the solution to stop the COVID-19: Clorox and disinfectant are the solution! Duh! How is it possible that any medical professional has passed this idea! It makes sense… if those are the articles that we are using right now to try to keep the virus away, we should drink this, or no even better we should inject ourselves with the right dosage of either Clorox or Disinfectant and that’s it! We will free of COVID-19! I quote him: « I see the disinfectant that knocks [coronavirus] out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that. » (Retrieved from: https://www.prweek.com/article/1681380/lysol-clorox-respond-trump-comment-injecting-disinfectant) The moment was so astonishing that the main companies were to make public declaration calling to the population to avoid by any circumstances to inject disinfectant and clorox!
As we know words have consequences: “Meanwhile, calls to New York City’s Poison Control Center for exposure to specific household cleaners and disinfectants increased more than twofold after the President’s comments on Thursday, WNBC New York reported today. Data from the New York Poison Center revealed that in the 18 hours after Trump’s comments, the Poison Center received 30 exposure calls about disinfectants. Ten involved bleach, 9 were about Lysol, and 11 others regarding other household cleaners. Compared to the same time window last year, there were a total of 13 exposure calls, with 2 involving bleach, but none involving Lysol-type products.” (Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2020/04/25/calls-to-poison-centers-spike–after-the-presidents-comments-about-using-disinfectants-to-treat-coronavirus/#3c16ed491157)
Almost at the same time, various governors (including the governor of the state in which I live, Florida… yeap, Florida again) starting to uplift measures related to the topic, and had the marvelous idea of open parks, and other social spaces. Still not clear why not the beaches, but parks for kids are ok, daycares, hear salons, banks and restaurants would be opening during the next week. Retrieved from: https://floridapolitics.com/archives/332815-phase-two-florida-reopen
Sure it is the right time to open such public spaces, as of today we have 15.366 (+12.3% since last week) confirmed cases just in Miami Dade County, and 559 deaths (+15% since last week) Retrieved from: www.covid19weatherchannel.com
So, as you can see… It makes sense though, if the “President” can invite us to inject Clorox as a solution why not open the parks to our kids, it is obvious!
As our colleague Dalila Arpin put it in her text Charlie Chaplin or metamorphosed sadness “Freud points out that humor also intervenes, when we laugh instead of get mad ourselves. Humor is the best cure for anger[…]In his text about the Witz (The witz and its relation to the unconscious), Freud concludes that the varieties of humor differ according to the nature of the emotions. This is how we achieved the profit of humor. And, we could add, in favor of the principle of pleasure. It is a way of deriving morbid satisfaction, beyond the pleasure principle, below it. According to Lacan’s definition of the plus-of-jouissance. Whether it is pity, suffering, anger or tenderness, the nature of the emotion determines the extent of the satisfaction encountered. So, for example, we can laugh at a situation that, in the past, gave us a lot of anguish (anxiety). But, at the moment of telling it, we have already overcome that anguish and the situation becomes in itself comical, because it encloses the means of its own overtaking. In these cases, the comic removes some of its energy from suffering and transforms it, causing a thrift in the psychic outgo. It is also a transformation of the situation into a knowledge that is of the order of a joy of learning (le gai savoir).” [1]
[1] Video Conference given during 2018 under the Lacanian Compass Video Conference Series.
