27/7/17

A SEMI-COLON AFTER LA MOVIDA ZADIG-Gil CAROZ















An other discourse is in the process of supplanting the old one.
Innovation in the place of tradition. The network rather than hierarchy.
The appeal of the future outweighs the weight of the past.
The feminine takes precedence over the masculine.
Jacques-Alain Miller, Lacan’s Seminar VI, Rear Cover

It is too early to take stock. That is why we opt for a semi-colon. New networks are currently being created. These new creations are not the fruit of a preconceived program stemming from an ideology, but from a series of encounters and contingent events. The signifiers are accumulating, placed one alongside the others according to these twists and turns. It’s a swarm, an open and teeming set [ensemble] of signifiers which are proliferating, following one another, overlapping each other, replacing each other, updating. This does not prevent them from being organized in a structure which renders them very effective, except that this structure is not regulated by the law of the father. It is metonymic rather than metaphoric, horizontal rather than vertical. A logic subtends its development, that of the creation of a network as a response to a cascade of collisions with the real.
The point of departure is the testimony made by Jacques-Alain Miller around an instant of seeing a real danger in the accession to power by far right in the recent presidential elections in France. This moment was followed, in certain haste, by a time for understanding and a moment to conclude, in the form of the 23 SCALP Forums (Series of Conversations Anti-LPen) which took place in France and Belgium, including three remarkable Forums in Paris. It has also resulted in the creation of the Journal extime of Jacques-Alain Miller and the Blog, L’instant de voir which was a response to the use of social media by the National Front to “un-demonise” themselves.
It very quickly became clear that this campaign could not end with the presidential elections. On April 12th, Jacques-Alain Miller indicated the necessity of following up the campaign with “a radically decentralized, flexible and interplanar organization, capable of perpetuating and extending the unprecedented alliances which have been knotted in the context of the Forums”. Subsequently he named it the “Alpha Network” [Réseau Alpha], whose objective is to further the action of psychoanalysts without adopting the discourse of the Master. This presence of psychoanalysis in politics is not only necessary to illuminate the field which did not see the coming danger of Le Pen, but also in order to perpetuate the existence of psychoanalysis as such. Subsequently, through various direct and virtual encounters in Europe and around the world, it was equally clear that political groups of the Lacanian orientation should be created outside of France as well. Thus, the Alpha Network has become La movida Zadig (Zero Abjection Democratic International Group), a network of multiple groups which will have a purpose of giving a direction to the continuation of the campaign.
Let’s attempt to find our way within these open sets, saying all the while that this will not be exhaustive, that what is true today may not necessarily be so tomorrow, because we are in the midst of a movement of an extremely fruitful development. So here are some current points of reference:
La movida Zadig (Zero Abjection Democratic International Group) also named Zadig Nosce Tempus (ZNT). It is a world-wide Lacanian political network. All citizens and residents of the European Union are eligible to be admitted this network. Zadig currently includes:
Le réel de la vie, the French Network, destined to oppose the organizationSens commun;
Rel i Llamp, (Roots and Lightning): Catalan political group;
El Grupo Iniciador: intended to prepare the ways and means for the creation of a Spanish Lacanian political network;
Groupe Zadig - Venezuela;
- Exploratory missions were given to colleagues from other countries in order to gauge the possibility of setting up other Zadig groups in Brazil as well as in South America (NEL Countries), in Flanders and in the other European countries of the NLS.
Several instances of the Zadig have been created:
ICE 1: Instance for Editorial Coordination of the publishing houses and publications of the Freudian Field
ICE 2: Instance for European Conferences
ICE 3: Instance for Executive Coordination
ICE 4: Instance for Epistemic Coordination

Heretic: A new international journal of Lacanian politics will be published shortly, as an online supplement to Lacan Quotidien. It will publish without translations texts from numerous correspondents around the world. All the nuances of the Lacanian reference within the political sphere will be presented.
Pamphlet No. 1 of La movida Zadig: this pamphlet will contain the manifesto of the movement and will include a membership form for the movida Zadig. The form can be completed and returned to Éric Zuliani’s postal address. In addition to the creation of Le réel de la vie and of the Rel i Llamp and as well as other contributions, you will find in the pamphlet contents three texts of reference and orientation:
- “Vos paroles m’ont frappé…” [Your Words Struck Me…] by François Regnault;
- “Petite digression” by Voltaire with commentaries by Jacques-Alain Miller;
- “Note sur la suppression générale des partis politiques” [On the Abolition of Political Parties] (extracts) by Simone Weil.

In conclusion, although many members of the School and the ACF are active in La movida Zadig (for example having organized the various SCALP Forums), is not an initiative of the School. It is rather a movement created alongside the School. Its major orienting principle is the gap prised from the discourse of the Master. Membership of La movida Zadig requires no other commitment than that of not being a member of a political party (Cf. the membership form). This is to ensure that each member has the possibility of orienting themselves in terms of their own “inner light” [lumière intérieure], an expression elaborated by Simone Weil in the text of which lengthy extracts are produced in the pamphlet “La movida Zadig” No.1.

Translated by Raphael Montague