Compromise Formation

An enigma, like a riddle is proposed to the subject by another subject. But the solution of a riddle in theory is theoretically completely in the conscious possession of the one who poses it, and thus, it is entirely resolved by the answer. An enigma, on the contrary, can only be proposed by someone who does not master the answer, because his message is a compromise-formation in which his unconsciousness takes part.

— Jean Laplanche, Essays on Otherness

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Little Life

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on,
and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

— Shakespeare, Tempest

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Novocain

On the face of it death, coldly, methodically, dealt out by a firing squad, precludes an indifferent treatment; such a subject is nothing if not charged with meaning for each one of us. But Manet approaches it with an almost callous indifference that the spectator, surprisingly enough, shares to the full. Maximilian reminds us of a tooth deadened by novocain…. Manet posed some of his models in the attitude of dying, some in the attitude of killing, but all more or less casually, as if they were about to “buy a bunch of radishes.'”

— Bataille on “L’execution de l’empereur Maximilien. 1868/69

 

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