MÉTÉORE / METEOR – Rubric 2: Guises of the object / Rubrique 2 : Guises de l’objet

There is a strong and firm orientation towards the 2023 NLS Congress. It is the orientation by the real in the clinic and in civilisation by means of the path that anxiety constitutes. And, in this orientation, it is that which Lacan called his only invention, the object a, that becomes the function of this passage whereby, according to Daniel Roy’s presentation of the theme, “anxiety is the trace of our body’s contribution to civilisation’s discontent.” [1]
 
This trace is signalled by the object which Jacques-Alain Miller highlighted as having risen to the social zenith, “an intensive element, which outdates any notion of measure, which goes toward the measureless, following a cycle […] of accelerated renewal, of frenetic innovation.” It is the “compass of civilisation today, the principle of the hypermodern discourse of civilization.” [2] Let us underline this syntagm “frenetic innovation,” and its resonances, for the exploration of these “new guises of the object.”
 
We can read this together with Zigmundt Bauman’s thesis about our times: “If in solid modernity, inclined to produce solid seats in which to re-root what had been uprooted, the royal road to success was to accommodate oneself, to fit into that prefabricated seat, in liquid modernity, the secret of success lies in not being unduly conservative, in avoiding making any particular seat habitual, in being mobile and always at hand, in proving oneself to be the genuine article necessary for flexibility, always at a disposal, ready to start again, rather than conforming and sticking to a form that had once been set.” [3] […]