Goebbels

Summary

Dominique Pagani mentions Goebbels only occasionally, mostly through scenes and sayings that he uses as examples. He retains the image of Goebbels listening to the funeral march from Götterdämmerung in his bunker, in which he sees "the imaginary in power"1. He reads Goebbels's suicide, along with his family, as an empirical illustration of the death drive, which in his view must be overcome2. In 2016 he quotes the phrase "when I hear the word culture, I reach for my pistol" in connection with criticism being accused of bringing about crisis. In 2019 he points out that the phrase is wrongly attributed to Goebbels. He also mentions Goebbels's hostility toward Furtwängler, which drove the conductor to take refuge in Switzerland3, and his complaint that Nazi militants were too stiff with German women4. Finally, he treats him as the counter-example of the "pure Aryan"5. In a remark about Popper, he contrasts him with Foucault: he would rather spend an evening with Foucault.

1. 1Y for Yonville8 Jan 2015 · 3:59
2. 2#6.1 Prelude: Lacan, “Function and field of speech and language”10 Nov 2019 · 35:02
3. 3Wagner and his interpreters, approaching Clouscard, Marx = Theseus?31 Mar 2021 · 35:53
4. 4#12 From Kafka to Proust, the dialectical passage from the intermezzo to the perpetuated edge7 Apr 2022 · 51:24
5. 5Imaginary identity15 May 2025 · 51:21

Summary produced automatically from 8 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.