Jacques Lacan, Imperial Music Master? In her book Thinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Postmodernism in the Contemporary West, Jane Flax asserts that the work of Jacques Lacan is pervaded by narcissism, both textually and theoretically. To prove her thesis, Flax discusses what she determines are “four of Lacan’s most important claims.” My focus is on Flax’s rebuttal of the claim “that the ‘phallus’ is in no way related to or meant to signify the ‘penis.’” Her observation that how could we not associate the phallus with the penis overlooks the narcissist’s defense against acknowledging the genital penis by idealizing the fecal penis. As in the Jewish joke which Lacan cites in “Seminar on the Purloined Letter”: “Why are you lying to me?” one character shouts breathlessly. “Yes, why do you lie to me saying you’re going to Cracow so I should believe you’re going to Lemberg, when in reality you are going to Cracow?” (36) we may ask Lacan, Why are you lying to us by saying that the phallus is not the penis so we should believe that the phallus is the penis, when in reality the phallus is not the penis?