Bernard Nominé
Tel Aviv, november 2013
As an introduction to the conference on music I shall give tomorrow evening, I shall give you tonight some elements about the voice, this unthinkable object that Lacan has extracted from this first mythic pact between the human being and speech. ”For this subject who is in the process of constituting himself, it is also a voice detached from its support that we ought to search for the remainder”
In the Lacanian myth of the subject advent, the human being who will have to talk must first constitute himself in relation to the Other, where the communication instruments are. He receives a “you are” even before he is able to ask “who am I?” Yet all of this primitive and mythical being cannot be summarised in this symbolical inscription; there is a remainder, the famous object a. The remainder of this operation that Lacan assimilates to a division is thus being constituted at the same time as the quotient of the aforesaid operation; that is to say at the same time that the divided subject, the $. $ and “a” are thus twin brothers. But they are twin brothers that will never ever meet. If this lost twin orientates the subject’s quest for his desire, he remains unattainable, drastically other even though strangely familiar.
What Lacan articulates step by step in his seminar about Anxiety is the logical function of this remainder that the subject aims at, without knowing it, in addressing the Other. Whether the dependence to the Other predominates or not , his demand, his jouissance, his potency or his desire, this rest can be declined in any oral, anal, phallic, scopic or vocal form.
The voice as object “a” is not a sounding object; it is not heard, except in psychosis where the voice is linked to sonority in verbal hallucination. In any case, we must not get this object mixed up with the phallic organ of the singer. The voice as a phallic instrument is a similar function to that of the narcissistic image i (a), the voice which seduces, which cajoles; it is something that dresses up the sounding void of object “a”
What did put Lacan on the trace of this voice as object “a”? It is Theodor Reik’s work on the Jewish ritual. The Jewish people have made a written agreement with their God and this pact begins with an alliance that asks for a sacrifice. It is the story of Isaac’s missed sacrifice from which each acknowledgement of a young male will be marked by the sacrifice of a small part of the body; this is circumcision.
In circumcision, it’s an essential separation with a certain part of the body which becomes symbolic of the relation of the alienated body to the Other. Now, apparently, circumcision as a concept can exist in other form than the foreskin. In Rabbi Eliezer’s Pirké we can read that there are five kinds of uncircumcision (Orla) in the world among which the uncircumcision of the ear – the uncircumcised of the ear cannot hear neither Yahweh’s word nor the prophets’ – and the uncircumcision of lips brings lack of understanding, it makes the speech heavy and inept. But what could be the physical object the subject would have to get separated from in circumcision of ear and lips? It is the voice, of course.
In Rabbi Eliezer’s Ethics, I found this curious sentence: “Six voices go from one end of the world to the other without being heard”. They are the voices coming out of the fruit tree being pruned, the voice coming out of the snake shedding its skin, the voice coming out of the repudiated wife, the voice coming out of the woman losing her virginity, the voice of the baby getting out of his mother’s womb and finally the voice of the soul leaving the body. All these situations have a cut, a separation, an uprooting in common; this is how a voice comes out and travels the world without being heard. To understand this curious sentence we must assimilate all these situations to an essential separation; that is to say the separation from this mute voice which is probably the prototype of this object invented by Lacan. Indeed who has ever heard the voice of the pruned tree or that of the snake shedding its skin?
When does Lacan situate this primordial separation from the voice? It happens with the advent of the subject, that is to say when he accepts to submit to an order that has not yet a sense for him because he is not yet able to decipher it. It is only after the interiorisation of this primordial order that the subject will be able to address his demands to the Other. Though, before he addresses the Other, he is able of vocalisation, the well known babble which is not whatsoever made to communicate. So after this pact on speech signed with the Other, the subject must renounce babble to articulate only signifying vocalises that he has learnt from the Other. There is no more question of senseless jargon in the Alliance with the Other. Yet children get much pleasure in jabbering, inventing languages to find again the jouissance they had from babbling. This renouncement is thus only partial. This part of the vocalise not sacrificed to the Other’s sense will constitute the voice object as cause of the desire in the invoking drive, namely, when all is said and done, as the cause of the sense.
Indeed, why should we accept the Other’s sense if this very sense did not provide us with any jouissance? The witticism which laughs at the Other’s sense shows us that to enjoy the sense is in complete solidarity with this meeting of the vocalisation previous to the sense. But after the intervention of the sense, the absence of sense can only be pleasant on the condition that it has a minimum of sense. This is what we call nonsense (non-sens in French) and which gives a certain amount of pleasure. It is how witticism works.
Now we must consider that from the Other’s side, all is not sense. We must remember the senseless primordial order forged by Lacan: “you are, you have to…” This is not sense. The Other demands a total agreement without any condition, even before we can understand what he wants. “The primary said decrees, legislates, aphorises, is oracle, and confers to the other real its obscure authority”
This structural fact is easily identified in the case of psychosis: the person suffering from hallucinations who has the misfortune to hear voices cannot resist the powerful suggestion they operate upon him.
One of the funding myths of the Judeo-Christian tradition illustrates this primary said and its obscure authority. It is this senseless order that Abraham hears, listens to and submits to as he leaves to sacrifice his son in order to please this God who is testing him. This is the prototype of the senseless order. You know that at the last minute, an angel stops Abraham’s arm and shows him a ram which will be sacrificed instead. In the Midrach Rabba tradition, this animal actually represents the primordial ram created on the sixth day, namely man’s ancestor. The Midrach emphasises that the ram has been sacrificed without any remainder: “no part of this ram was useless”. With the skin we did this, with the bones we did that, even the horns in which was carved the famous Shofar precisely mentioned by Theodor Reik.
For Lacan this shofar is used to remind of the voice from the primordial animal and it is made to resonate in order to celebrate the alliance of Yahweh with his people, an alliance sealed through the ten commandments of Moses’ law. In other words, unlike what was said by the Midrach rabbis, there has been a remainder in the sacrificed ram; all of the ram’s crying is not translated into a divine commandment written on the tables of the Law; and the shofar is here to remind God of his origins, to incite him to some modesty.
The Other is a place which is not totally deserted by the animal’s cry, by the vociferation of the loud voice. But as it happens the Other cannot justify it, he cannot answer for it. And it is better like that, because if the Other’s sensible law should answer for this vociferation, this law would be utterly ferocious. This is what partly happens in the superego objurgations. It is not surprising that Lacan makes the relation between the voice and the superego as the superego project is to establish an Other complete with the voice. Whereas structurally, the voice decompletes the Other and underlines his lack of guarantee.
We must then consider the voice as an “extimate” object as Lacan used to say meaning intimate and foreign at the same time, it is a foreign part inside. The voice is inside the Other because it is signifying material but as a senseless remainder, it escapes the nature of this Other who is the guarantor of the sense. The voice is thus a parenthesis, a hollow in the Other. It is this hollow in the Other that leaves a place for the misunderstanding, a place for the desire in the Other’s statements.
But for that the subject must play his part in it, he must admit that we can hear other than what is said. This is how Lacan formulates it: “we have to incorporate the voice as otherness of what is said […] A voice is incorporated and this is what can give it a function in modelling our void.” It is a rather complicated sentence but I think it underlines that the voice is firstly external to the subject, it comes from the outside, it is an otherness which becomes internal because it is incorporated. The voice is thus the ultimate separation object. The subject and the Other have in common this void. Hence the subject can situate his voice as object “a”, that is to say the senseless part of its enunciation into the Other’s void where it can resonate. In the same way, the Other’s sayings resonate on the subject’s side where the voice object has modelled a void; it allows him to be sensitive to the otherness of what is said.
The subject’s alienation to the Other cannot exist without a separation and it is the function taken by this voice remainder as object “a”.
Analytic interpretation is based on this object as it conveys the otherness of what is being said. The analyst must give his place to this object “a”; he incarnates its function by listening in a specific way, with the third ear, as Reik used to say. This third ear functions in a double way. It can get what has not been said but only felt or thought. It can also be turned towards the inside. It can hear voices coming from deep inside the ego, usually inaudible because they are covered by the noise of our conscious thinking process.” It would not be difficult to compare this sentence from Reik with Lacan’s concept of the voice as object “a”.
This void of the voice is the place where witticism resonates as I just mentioned before. It also means that it is a privileged place for unconscious creations and thus for the subject supposed to know whose chattering covers this resounding void of the voice, this lack of guarantee in the Other.
Pirkei Rabbi Eleazar
Rabbi Ze'era || said : There are five ^ kinds of Orlah (things
iincircumcised) in the world : four with reference to man,
and one concerning trees. Whence do we know this concerning
the four (terms) applying to man ? (Namely,) the
uncircumcision of the ear, the uncircumcision of the lips,
the uncircumcision of the heart, and the uncircumcision of
the flesh. Whence do we know of the uncircumcision of the
ear ? Because it is said,"
Behold, their ear is uncircumcised"
(Jer. vi. 10). Whence do we know of the vmcircumcision
of the lips ? Because it is said,
" For I am of uncircumcised
lips"
(Ex. vi. 12). Whence do we know of
the uncircumcision of the heart ? Because it is said,"
Circumcise the foreskin of your heart"
(Deut. x. 16) ;
and (the text) says,
" For all the nations are uneircumcised,
and all the house of Israel are uneircumcised in heart"
(Jer. ix. 26). Whence do we know of the uncircumcision
of the flesh ? Because it is said,
" And the uneircumcised
male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin"
(Gen. xvii. 14). And "
all the nations are uneircumcised "in all the four cases, and "all the house of Israel are uneircumcisedin heart." The uncircumcision of the heart does
not suffer Israel to do the will of their Creator. And in the
future the Holy One, blessed be He, will take away from
Israel the uncircumcision of the heart, and they will not
harden their stubborn (heart) any more before their Creator,
as it is said,
" And I will take away the stony heart ^ out
of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh"
(Ezek.xxxvi. 26) ; and it is said,
" And ye shall be circumcised in
the flesh of your foreskin" ^
(Gen. xvii. 11). Whence do we
know concerning the one ('Orlah) for trees ? * Because it
is said,
" And when ye shall come into the land, and shall
have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall
count the fruit thereof as their uncircumcision :
^ three years
shall they be as vuicircumcised unto you"
(Lev. xix. 23).
Rabbi Ze'era ^ taught : The tree || which is mentioned
here is none other than the vine tree.^ If they do not cut
off from the tree the fruit of the first three years, all the
fruit which it yields will be gleanings fit to be pluckt off,
and not good ; and its wine will be disqualified for the
altar ; but if they cut off from the tree the fruit of the first
three years, all the fruit which it yields will be good for
the sight, and their wine will be selected to be brought
upon the altar. So with our father Abraham ; before he
was circumcised, the fruit which he produced was not good
[in its effects,^ and was disqualified from the altar; but
when he had been circumcised, the fruit which he produced
was good in its effects,^ and his wine]
^ was chosen to be
put upon the altar like wine for a libation, as it is said,
" And wine for the drink offering"
(Num. xv. 5).
The voices of five (objects of creation)
go from one end of the world to the other, and their voices are inaudible.*
When people cut down the wood of the tree which yields
fruit, its cry goes from one end of the world to the other,
and the voice is inaudible. When the serpent sloughs off
its skin, its cry goes from one end of the world to the other
and its voice is not heard." When a woman is divorced
from her husband, her voice goeth forth from one end of
the world to the other, but the voice is inaudible. When
the infant || comes forth from its mother's" womb. When
the soul departs from the body,^- the cry goes forth from one
end of the world to the other, and the voice is not heard.
The soul does not go out of the body until it beholds the
Shekhinah, as it is said,
" For man shall not sec me and
live"
(Ex. xxxiii. 20).i3
