Strawberries

Practicability of thinking.

“To be 'means' for fulfillment of someone requires my work… Narcissus is outside of the relationship.

Thinking to be the ‘means’ is the very principle of reality… If we really wanted to save the word 'love', it lies entirely in the other as a means”. [1]

'By means of' is a right, hence a power: but it is also the only path to make applicabile thinking. Otherwise, there is nothing but Imago.

Marina Bilotta Membretti/ Cernusco sul Naviglio – September 8, 2026

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[1] Cited from the Prolusion by Giacomo B. Contri/ October 17, 2020 to the Symposium ‘Per mezzo’ 2020 – 2021 organized by ‘Società Amici del Pensiero – Sigmund Freud’ association, Milan.

heroism or reliance.

"(Antigone) …I certainly would not have undertaken this audacity, defying the will of the city, either for children, or if I had seen the body of my husband rotting. And so, in deference to what principles do I reason this way? If I had lost a husband, I could have found another, and had another child from him, if a child had died; but now that my mother and my father lie beneath the earth, I will never be able to have another brother… Have I perhaps violated divine justice?... And to whom shall I ask for help, if through my piety I have earned the name of impious? Well, if this seems right to the gods, after going through pain I will admit my own mistake."[1]

“It is certain that at least one of the two protagonists (Antigone and Creon) to the very end, knows neither fear nor piety, and it is Antigone. It is for this reason, among others, that she is the true hero.”[2]

However when admitting to have "undertaken this audacity, defying the will of the city," Antigone does not choose the solitary position of the hero, and defers to the gods – who are nevertheless neither partners nor fellow citizens – the judgment that she is truly looking for, in a reconciliation: she is judging the reliability, which can only be human and upon which the city is founded.

It is only here, in this very brief breath of unkept words, that Antigone opens herself to a possible partner, that is, a living one.

Marina Bilotta Membretti/ Cernusco sul Naviglio – August 30, 2026

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[1] ‘Sofocle. Antigone’, Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli RCS Libri SpA (2000), p. 125

[2] ‘Jacques Lacan. Il seminario. Libro VII. L’etica della psicoanalisi 1959 – 1960’. Testo stabilito da Jacques-Alain Miller. Traduzione di Maria Delia Contri. Edizione italiana a cura di Antonio Di Ciaccia/ p. 301

 ex-citement vs desire.

“If you dare to formulate an unpaid satisfaction through a removal, the issue placed at the center, promoted in its primacy, is: what is desire? And in this regard, I can only remind you that desire always necessarily places itself in a perspective of absolute condition.” [1]

If you dare to formulate an unpaid satisfaction, this already begins as an illusion, even a hallucinatory one, because the other is not there, nor is there a place for the other.

And if we intended to promote the primacy of desire by recalling the perspective of an absolute condition, we would receive the applause by the gods but not the possibility of making the desire a human domain, hence an ambition: such a condition – free from any bond, that is – does not build a city; it is ephemeral because it cannot deal with work and partnership.

But the appeal[2] (or ex-citation, or Triebregung[3]) that originates from another, a possible partner, will be able to face the reality, whether it yelds a profit or not.

Ultimately, the principle of pleasure can be removed when formulating a desire and an illusion: not as far as satisfaction, because satisfaction enters the experience of work.

A satisfaction, which as such can only be paid for, can nevertheless be denied by the Subject: certainly through a lie.

Marina Bilotta Membretti/ Cernusco sul Naviglio – August 21, 2026

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[1] ‘Jacques Lacan. Il seminario. Libro VII. L’etica della psicoanalisi 1959 – 1960’. Testo stabilito da Jacques-Alain Miller. Traduzione di Maria Delia Contri. Edizione italiana a cura di Antonio Di Ciaccia/ Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi (2008), p.340

[2] See ‘THINK!’, Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Cosa ti salta in mente ?’ martedì 30 gennaio 2018 www.giacomocontri.it  See also ‘Il pensiero di natura. Dalla psicoanalisi al pensiero giuridico’, Giacomo B. Contri – SIC Edizioni (1998).

[3] See ‘L’Io e l’Es’, S. Freud (1923) in ‘Sigmund Freud. Opere’ Vol.9 Bollati Boringhieri editore (1989).

the pious crime by Antigone between psychoanalysis and politics.

“(Ismene): …To act beyond one's limits is absolute unbalanced.

(Antigone): I will no longer seek your help, and even if you decide to act in the future, I will not welcome your cooperation. Be whatever you wish to be: it is a beautiful thing for me to die in this undertaking. Dear to him who is dear to me I shall lie, for a pious crime.” [1]

By attributing to herself what she calls a 'crime', Antigone uses a verb which in ancient Greek indicates deceiving, trivializing, or being too smart: and in the text's oxymoron, 'pious' is an attribute of the gods who make no mistakes, unlike humans who must continuously repent. Creon himself, though ruler of Thebes, will ultimately have to painfully repent.

As for Antigone—"this so terribly voluntary victim”, as Jacques Lacan[2] defines her—Antigone goes so far to make attractive (even desirable!) the perversion that she herself introduces into the city."

Marina Bilotta Membretti/ Cernusco sul Naviglio – August 12, 2026 

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[1] ‘Sofocle. Antigone’, Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli RCS Libri Spa (2000) vv.68-74, p.65

[2] ‘Jacques Lacan. Il seminario. Libro VII. L’etica della psicoanalisi 1959 – 1960’. Testo stabilito da Jacques-Alain Miller. Traduzione di Maria Delia Contri. Edizione italiana a cura di Antonio Di Ciaccia/ p. 290