Interpreting Civilization and Its Discontents

Thank you for the commentary on this work of Freud. It was worth listening all to the end.

It's much more the case that class antagonisms produce objects which prey on certain classes to provide them their desires which are placed at a distance only because of the class's lack of economic mobility. But talking about it in the way Freud discusses it, he hypostatizes it and only makes the perceived distance of the object more justified in reality. We can't exist in this naive realm of psychoanalysis without acknowledging the myopic tendency in work like this.

It's actually pretty easy reading , not to academic sounding, try reading it, Civilizations only like 100 pages, blew me away.

Good point, the most popular games usually involve some form of killing, counter-strike, call of duty, world of warcraft, league of legends and the list goes on..
Freud is spot on when he says we have inner natural desires which are suppressed in our “modern society”. We then manifest those desires through video games to use your example.

Thanks. Very nice!

I think that civilization and social order are more or less equivalent. It's not as specific, but the process is the same. I think you're right about the olfactory. To me, Freud is just making a relative point, not a specific one always valid in every case.

I need to watch it. Thanks.

@F K will look it up. Thanks!

OK

Had I seen West Side Story, I would have a response. Sorry for that shameful fact.

@@toddmcgowan8233 😱😁 there is a youtube clip (its not long) of it here ruclips.net/video/j7TT4jnnWys/видео.html
Also really enjoying your Why Theory podcasts. Many thanks.
Aha! Gee Officer Krupke is Covered in Zizeks Perverts guide to ideology! Just incase anyone else cares. 😁

New Introductory Lectures, Lecture XXXI

Yes, I think that's exactly right. Hierarchy is the attempt to overcome contradiction by turning it into an opposition. This is also the logic of war: one transforms the internal contradiction into an external opposition, which is why Robespierre rightly resisted the Girondin call to export the Revolution through war and why Lenin did whatever he could, even at great cost, to end Russian involvement in WWI.

Yes, a difference, but it's important to see, I think, that both are split, at odds with themselves, which is how they interact. I deal with this in a chapter of Enjoying What We Don't Have, which I can send to you in pdf if you email me

Often, I don't really like the flavor. But that's not the point. The point is that the enjoyment of the drink depends on the restriction created by the limit of the can. If there was no limit, one would still find pleasure in drinking, but not the enjoyment that comes from the limit.

Possibly, but I'm not sure what you mean by the modern condition--modernity or today?

@@toddmcgowan8233 sorry for the late reply,
I suppose I mean for how the now is contextualized within the framework of today. For example (and I believe ripe for academic subject matter), have you heard of the nft tokens. Sort of similar to how bitcoin functions through the blockchain, these non fungible tokens are little media clips and artist compositions that only exist on an online media platform that uses blockchain as well. There have been some stories in the past couple days in the news about them and specifically about on simple short digital clip of a fallen Donald Trump covered in corporate logos face down as digital people pass by. It was purchased by an online art collector for 40k and just got resold for 6 million.
Well if you want to talk about the Lacan that revered Kojeve and based desire on the desire of the Other qua recognition (before he wrote Kojeve off as a "humanist") then you could explicate how in this strange meta economy desire is virtualized in the online matrix to the degree of such radical overvaluation that people are paying million of dollars for something that does not ek-sist. Maybe the digitalization of the real or something of the like.

Thanks, I'll do it.

I never heard about Alice Miller until now. What a shame. Thank you.

​@@colinbennett9751 This is a mystification of what are actual relations between real human beings. Essentially, it is just a secularization of the Christian myth of original sin. It totally misses the political aspect of the situation, which involves domination of the weak by the strong.
Put it this way: my parents abused me. I have struggled with suicidal tendencies for much of my life. It is clear to me that the main driver in this, is a desire for revenge in a situation where I am weak and powerless. My true desire, would be to kill my parents in revenge for what they did to me. I want to make them suffer, they way I suffered. Since I don't want to be a murdered, I project this violence back towards myself: since I am the offspring of my parents, and since I internalized many aspects of my parents personalities into my own personality, by killing myself, I would
But the solution is ABSOLUTELY NOT to accept that my trauma is some "ontological condition". The real solution is to analyze the politics of trauma and fight against the necrophilic elements within society that uphold relationships of domination between the strong and the weak.
For instance, although I want nothing to do with my parents, I can understand that their are mitigating factors to their actions: not only in terms of the fact that they may have experienced some abuse, but also to the extent that I realize that they themselves were duped and already immersed in relationships of domination. In particular, my parents abused me, because they read a book by the Christo-fascist evangelical child psychologist, James Dobson, "Dare to Discipline", (from 1970) that teaches parents to engage in ritual psychosexual child abuse of young children. Dobson is part of a right wing political project full of people that would like to turn the US into a rightwing fascist theocracy.
And the fact is, in general systemic abuse is widely used as an authoritarian method of control. Every cult leaders knows how to implement patterns of systemic abuse in order to maintain power.
So, how do I deal with the evil that was done to me against my will, when I was weak and powerless? Murdering my parents is not a good solution, neither is murdering myself as a proxy, but there is an alternative: to adopt a political standpoint that is committed to fighting against structures of domination, not only of abusive cults or authoritarian/fascist groups, but also to struggle against the primary relationship of domination, that of capital over the working class. Righteous anger, and the desire for revenge, need not devolve into antisocial behavior or self-destructive behavior patterns--it can instead be channeled into "biophilic" projects that affirm life, projects that aim to reduce domination, projects that aim for the survival and flourishing of human beings, in a situation where our long term future as a species is very much in doubt. The only escape from sadomasochistic behavior patterns is to actively take a stand against domination, to accept responsibility for oneself as a political subject--finite but NOT powerless--and to work to build collective forms of political power that can challenge and overturn structures of domination.

@@TheCyborgk While I can see the need or interesting perspective for your question.. first, the terms that you are using - 'biophilic', 'affirm' life, 'flourishing' humans - and second, the additional assumptions of an allegedly coherent political subject who will be possessing counter-power and masterfully effecting counter-domination - these altogether are very much tied to ideologies and theories (humanist, rationalist, marxist epistemologies) against which Freudian psychoanalysis stands in opposition.. and against which Freudian psychoanalysis is very strongly critical about...

​@@georgesduroy410 I'm aware of that. So the question is: given these competing theories, on what basis can we decide which claims are true? What basis is there for accepting that psychoanalysis provides the better account of human nature? It seems to me that competing psychoanalytic theories of the less empirical sort are basically speculative, although they may be rooted in the experience of clinical practice.
Now, I'm skeptical that purely empirical theories of psychology can get to a deep understanding, but if theories aren't verifiable in the science of traditional positivist science, that creates a big problem:
How do we adjudicate between the competing truth claims of, for instance, Freud, Jung, Fromm, Adler, and Lacan?

@@georgesduroy410 In relation to "flourishing" and "biophilic" (and I purposely used these types terms knowing that people watching this video will dislike them):
Would you accept that there are techniques of gardening that lead to a garden that produces healthy plants, and other techniques that will lead to dying and diseased plants? And that a human gardener, by reflecting on their gardening practices, and observing the garden, can think and act in ways that enhance the health and growth of the garden?
If we are biological organisms, why wouldn't the same thing apply to us? Don't we as humans have the ability to reflect on our personal and social conditions, and create environments that enhance our health and growth?

No, I like Fromm. I just think that he assumes that there is a spontaneous human vitality that becomes sidetracked. He has no real theory of self-destructiveness but sees this always as something imposed on us. But my question then is, why do we accept this imposition? Fromm wants happiness to become our purpose. That sounds great, but I don't see how this accounts how the appeal that destructiveness has.

​@@toddmcgowan8233 Thanks for commenting!
In "The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness", Fromm distinguishes from ordinary aggression related to things like conflict over resources, but then reworks the death drive as he claims that a certain class of personalities as having a "necrophilic" orientation, which he thinks begins in childhood and comes with a set of very specific traits.
It seems similar to the research on serial killers that has noted that children who become serial killers often abuse and kill animals while growing up.
Haven't read Fromm's book in a while so I'm not sure how compelling his case is or what a Freudian counterargument could be.
But I also want to comment as someone with PTSD, who has some first person experience with these things, I would offer the following account of destructiveness in the context of a child being abused:
A child is totally dependent on caregivers for survival. Violence perpetrated by the caregiver is interpreted as a threat to survival, and in an abusive situation, the child internalizes the viewpoint of the caregiver, against their own interests. The child identifies primarily with the abuser as a survival strategy. This continues into adulthood, as long as the abused is not able to take an explicit stand against the abuse, recognize it for what it is, and make a conscious effort to rework behavior patterns in ways that challenge those original patterns of domination.
But here the idea of trauma adds a complication, because if a situation arises that is unconsciously interpreted as resembling the original situation, the BODY will take over with fight-flight-freeze reflexes, which involves tons of extremely powerful chemicals getting dumped into the body. Under such a situation, THE SUBJECT DISAPPEARS. At the moment of traumatic flashback, the subject essentially acts on autopilot, acting out some aspect of the original trauma, which is stored in the body, in automatic ways.
The problem is, I think this problem is fully embodied--it involves an entire mind-body complex and can't be reduced to a psychic or physical language. It essentially takes place outside the Symbolic Order--it is an encounter with the Real mediated only by the imaginary, because the intensity of the experience causes severe cognitive limitation--verbal abilities become significantly limited. Self destructive behavior may come into play here, as well, not only as repetition, but also, because the experience is so intense, disturbing, overwhelming, and frightening, that death seems to be the only way of achieving safety from such a state, which is intolerable as it erases the human subject and causes one to act in ways that are "insane".
On the other hand, depending on the nature of the specific trauma, some individuals might respond differently and want to reproduce that trauma.
So my problem is that this experience involves the elements of the death drive: mindless repetition, self-destructive behavior, but I think the Freudian hypothesis misses the extent that it is CONDITIONED SECONDARY BEHAVIOR, that can be explained in terms of more primary processes. But there's not really any need to posit some kind of primal, pre-existing death drive that exists within the human infant from birth.
In other words, and in contrast to what Fromm identifies as "necrophilic" personality traits, the split in the traumatized subject can be traced back to real conditioning during childhood and antagonisms in the relationship between caregiver and child, which are internalized into psychic contradictions.

That's a great question. You're right, of course, that we want someone to witness our enjoyment, as in your Cindy Crawford example or when one brags about sexual exploits. But I think that love is different. It involves sexual enjoyment, for sure, but the primary mechanism of love is that it replaces the big Other with the little other. Love really does marginalize the big Other, which we see not only in PDA but also with couples who fight freely in public.

@@toddmcgowan8233 thats a lovely turn of phrase Todd. I like your ‘negative’ example of fighting in public too. I can see that desperately wanting to come to accord with the elevated little other could again sideline the Big Other. I imagine thats very different from when couples get into shame cycles, which can also be very public? Would the latter be scoring points under the gaze of the big Other trying to salvage an ideal-ego wounded by a collapse in the ego-ideal where the small other had come to occupy a position?

@@macguffin8540 Yes, for sure shame is different and always experienced relative to the big Other. It's an effort to restore the big Other, as you suggest, in the place of the little other.

@@toddmcgowan8233 thanks Todd, really appreciate your help. I love that your videos always offer so many interesting points for exploration!

I'm close to being in agreement, but I would say that Freud and Rousseau are both completely wrong to say that society might not be worth it. One can only say this from the perspective of society, which makes it a worthless statement.

The translation from the Standard Edition by James Strachey is the one you should read

@@toddmcgowan8233 thanks todd!

Great point. I agree completely, and it nicely supports Freud's theoretical claim but runs against his assessment of St. Francis

Just like you said--too dark.

@@toddmcgowan8233 epic