Abstract
If postmodern man seems to disavow old virtues in favor of personal advantages, for Lacan, in 1968, the fading of shame would be what opened the door to converting any significant dignity into significant accounting. In this sense, society would be progressively guided by imaginary forms of survival and/or illusion, giving rise to a perverse rule, including politics, even if it is narrated through a politically correct discourse. However, currently stripped of pious alibis, the imaginary identification with the impostures of opportunity would remain widespread, abolishing authorship, suppressing honor and banishing shame at once, due to power and greed as Machado de Assis had foreshadowed through fiction in tales such as "Medallion Theory" and "The Mirror."
imaginary identification; cynical reason; literature; psychoanalysis