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factor c ( facteur c) Lacan coined the term 'factor c' at a psychiatric
congress in 1950. Factor c is 'the constant characteristic of any given cultural
milieu' (E, 37): it is an attempt to designate that part of the symbolic order
which marks the particular features of one culture as opposed to another (c
stands for culture). Although it would be interesting to speculate on the
possible applications of this concept to the interrelationship between different
cultural milieux and psychoanalysis, Lacan only gives one example of the c
factor; ahistoricism, he argues, is the c factor of the culture of the United States
(see E, 37 and E, l15). The 'American way of life' revolves around such
signifiers as 'happiness', 'adaptation', 'human relations' and 'human engineer-
ing' (E, 38). Lacan regards the c factor of United States culture as particularly
antithetical to psychoanalysis, and sees it as largely responsible for the errors
which have beset psychoanalytic theory in the USA (such aS EGO-PSYCHOLOGY).
congress in 1950. Factor c is 'the constant characteristic of any given cultural
milieu' (E, 37): it is an attempt to designate that part of the symbolic order
which marks the particular features of one culture as opposed to another (c
stands for culture). Although it would be interesting to speculate on the
possible applications of this concept to the interrelationship between different
cultural milieux and psychoanalysis, Lacan only gives one example of the c
factor; ahistoricism, he argues, is the c factor of the culture of the United States
(see E, 37 and E, l15). The 'American way of life' revolves around such
signifiers as 'happiness', 'adaptation', 'human relations' and 'human engineer-
ing' (E, 38). Lacan regards the c factor of United States culture as particularly
antithetical to psychoanalysis, and sees it as largely responsible for the errors
which have beset psychoanalytic theory in the USA (such aS EGO-PSYCHOLOGY).
