This stuff is all true. Lacan also had a habit of permanently "borrowing" people's collectible books, charging Felix Guattari to drive Lacan home, sleeping with his female clients, and many, many other despicable things. He was, by all accounts, a complete scumbag.
I still read him because his ideas are brilliant and helped me in innumerable ways. He's dead now and his books can't hurt me. They're not even ideological, so you can't make the same case as you could for avoiding, say, a certain Austrian political theorist. However, if we somehow resurrect Lacan, I won't be lending him any first editions from my collection.
> He's dead now and his books can't hurt me. They're not even ideological, so you can't make the same case as you could for avoiding, say, a certain Austrian political theorist.
If only you hadn't put "political" there I was going to think of a joke about Wittgenstein. Who was possibly the grumpiest Austrian in the world at the time, even considering the other one.
I still read him because his ideas are brilliant and helped me in innumerable ways. He's dead now and his books can't hurt me. They're not even ideological, so you can't make the same case as you could for avoiding, say, a certain Austrian political theorist. However, if we somehow resurrect Lacan, I won't be lending him any first editions from my collection.