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When a conflict arises within an apparently united group, it is surprising to see how the facts can be interpreted differently and how yesterday's consensus can reveal divergent historical perspectives. The experience of translation can generate comparable discord. On top of the fact that words in one language are simply not exact equivalents of words in another, translation brings together two worlds, with their contrasting histories and answers, that seek to strike up a dialogue.
It is these two threads—of conflict within an institution and of translation—that I would like briefly to weave together in an effort to make the journal you are reading into a hospitable meeting place, a translator.
There is no unanimity about reality. Everyone agrees that it exists, but no two people understand it in exactly the same way. Freud avoided the pitfall of a content-based definition and chose instead to address the question of a principle. And he conceived this reality principle as necessarily being in conflict with the pleasure principle. Reality is born of conflict.
Reality, said Freud, must be tested, must be put to the test. It distinguishes itself through this trial, which generates a tried and tested case that must then be tolerated, connected, developed. This reality requires continuous work because it evolves, is constantly changing, like life itself. The ego will form a representation of this reality; it has nothing but the representation with which to build its own reality. But the ego does not work alone; it develops in a representational field rich in all the history and all the culture developed by the group, especially through language. The representation is