I used to lecture with Will and he was always impressive and clearly had a good grasp of what he was saying. He was generous to a fault and devoted to the well being of his students,

Brilliant to hear Will Self , authentic, articulate, humerous and thought provoking.

In love with yourself, believing what you say matters, and always thinking you're right, I can't stand that man

HI THERE

Who's this Matthew who asked that brilliant question

If he would have been happier making friends rather than writing novels then he should have done that.

Smack?

Ben Lazare Mijuskovic Theories of Consciousness and the Problem of Evil in the History of Ideas

Bernadine Evaristo at the first question!

Will is on the spectrum 100%

Things fall away, change happens....the quality appears to disappear, yet life goes on in banality and economic rationalisation......lemmings over the cliff?

Brilliant for sure. But, he has 8 kids.

ok, I was looking forward to listening to this, until, Mr Self said "methodology" the word is method I'm off to bed ......

Very helpful, thank you! Would love more info in the description and ideally the slides provided.

What is British philosophy?

5:39

When I see 'Will Self' I am jump for joy!

This has not aged well.

One more thing... END

Erudite(?) klap-trap.

The ability to 'write' should be essential before submitting a thesis in typed-form it should be written ( warts 'n' all) by hand. Only if the hand-written version is illegible then type out the horrid typed-version. I wanna be sedated.

He’s triggered them so fucking hard haha

Interesting to hear a pre-Booker Bernadine pipe up. Also interesting to see such an angry Self. I quite like that somebody told the symphony guy to shut up.

Why do i find this man irresistible

Ben Lazare Mijuskovic: Philosophical Roots of Loneliness and Intimacy: Political Narcissism and the Problem of Evil

Ben Mijuskovic: Metaphysical Dualism, Subjective Idealism, and Existential Loneliness (Routledge)

Hi Thomas, Really interesting work. I was actually thinking about your mum and found you during my search. Great to see that you are doing such enlightening work. Wendy Bruce (was Wendy Farr - Sunderland Church High School and Gelsenkirchen exchange 1977)

The psychoanalyst, Gregory Zilboorg, wrote the Introduction to the English translation of Beyond the Pleasure Principle. The first study of loneliness as a subject matter in its own right is authored by Zilboorg and it appears in the Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1938. In the essay, he forges an intrinsic theoretical relation between ego narcissism<>loneliness<>and hostility. He attributes the dynamic force as operating in various individual as well as social contexts, including groups, nations, religions, races, and political parties. But it all begins in infancy. He also stresses that it is most forcefully displayed in anger. Generally, we tend to think that loneliness is expressed in sadness, despair and depression but the reality is that lonely people are first angry at their plight. And often they display strong destructive tendencies toward others, the self, and both others and the self. Psychiatrically, Narcissism can be diagnosed as a Personality Disorder (DSM, 301.81) and it it is often paired with Antisocial Personality Disorders (DSM, 301). When it assumes a political power, it can be highly destructive, contagious, and catastrophic.

Freud forges a connection between narcissism and sadism in a number of his works, including Civilization and Its Discontents, The Ego and the Id, The Interpretation of Dreams, and Beyond the Pleasure Principle, etc., and the question is does this dynamic have any political relevance?

New theme: Political Narcissism. Psychoanalysis, according to Freud, frequently associates narcissism with sadism. This is currently the most significant danger in our time.

The front row man misses the point. Self’s point about symphonies is not that none are brilliant art, but that the form is going the way of the codex-fewer and fewer of us are listening to them.

He always reminds me of blakey from on the buses,

Hello Ben, I notice you cited "Lonely God, Lonely man..." by Dean Turner in one of your books (although I sensed with some level of disagreement). I know that Turner associated loneliness with being incomplete... would you include this in your model of loneliness?

Wonderful lecture! : ]

Is anybody else watching this and simultaneously translating into French and then back again so I get that Foucault fluffy feeling?

Most human beings believe that love is the most dominant motivational passion within consciousness but without the primacy of loneliness love would be meaningless.

Loneliness and Narcissism. Let me try to explain something difficult and complex about loneliness. Loneliness, as a "substance," as a "stand alone realty" apart from being experienced in a self, a human subject has three "aspects"---"breadth,": "depth," and "duality." Breadth in the sense that it can permeate outwardly, toward an extended space, it can "color" a situation or an vent, like a funeral or losing a war. It also has depth in the sense that it can be mild or deeply intense, like in the contemplation of committing suicide. But it also exhibits "duality," it can "travel" in two ways, both toward anger and anxiety (or both at once). For example, when the recently born infant is unable to secure his mother's breast, it initially expresses anger. But when it is neglected for for an extended period of time, it first feels anxiety and later depression and listlessness (Gregory Zilboorg, Rene Spitz). This is true of individuals, groups, and nations. The current civil war in the US displays all three of these aspects, perspectives, and dynamics.

Currently, there is an increasingly growing global pandemic of loneliness that promises not to stop as eight billion monadic souls are ceaselessly circumnavigating the world. The ancient and traditional means of intimately bonding human beings to each other have weakened: conjugal relationships, marriage, families, clans tribes, rural communities villages, ethnic neighborhoods have systematically given way to divorce, single parent households, and intense job competition. Ferdinand Tonnies, "the father of sociology," distinguishes two opposing forms of human association, the organic community and the atomistic society with the latter gaining more and more ground. The old traditional means of securing a sense of belonging within religions and nations are systematically eroding. Meanwhile the US is gripped in the vice of a destructive political civil war between the isolationists and the liberationalists. The one group is too tight and demanding and the second too loose and permissive. What is to be done?.

The opposite of loneliness is intimacy. Often people use it synonymously with sympathy and even pity. But originally, it was an aesthetic concept coined by Theodor Lipps, an aesthetician. Lipps described it as a "projection" of our own feelings into the aesthetic object. As we are observing a dancer, for example, we project our feelings of balance, freedom, proportion, grace, energy, etc., our own expressions, into the movements of the artist. Husserl tried to use Lipps' conception to solve the problem of "personal identity." Husserl, in the Cartesian Meditations, argued that we bodily project our self into the bodily presence of the other self, that we analogically place our body in to the space of the other self. The problem with that "projection" is that it is one-sided. The dancer does not mutually or reciprocally project her movements into us as mere observers. When genuine intimacy occurs, both parties share the same emotions. For example, imagine a situation in which a young couple experience the death of their young child. They both share the same emotions of loss, of grief, of loneliness.. Or imagine an elderly couple having enjoyed a wonderful lie together and learning that one of them has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The feelings are mutual. Supposedly, Aristotle said that friendship is like two bodies in one soul. The point is that intimacy must be shared. It is based on mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual affection. Along with it, there is a path of mutual empathy. Empathy must be mutual as well; it must be twofold and it must be shared. In empathy, what we share are three things, feelings decisions, and values. The relation must occur between equals.

Ageing Studies:Radio 4.An interview with mother who claimed her own Mother had disowned her and her brother for becoming parents against her believes?Not spoken to either for eight years!My view is that their Mother is very wise.Full well knowing that subconsciously they (as parents)will try to incorporate her into their responsibilities as the benevolent “gran”.No matter their denial.It would creep.World population is everyone’s responsibility!Even though poor Senior mum would be there in disease or death.But more likely as the future crashes in.Her own!As John Lennon said”Life happens while you’re busy making plans”!?Thanks Mr.Self.Mac.Jan.2021.

The political dynamics of narcissism and hostility have led the US media networks to be puzzled by Mr. Trump's Senate and his "Base" electoral supporters regarding their unflinching advocacy in his behalf. The answer is twofold. First his political supporters are motivated by the desire to remain in power regardless of his policies. But his Base is animated by his unflinching anger at anything that opposes him and by extension anything that opposes them as well, anything that annoys them regardless of whatever policy he happens to promote because of their general feelings of disenfranchisement. In 1938, just before the start of World War Two in Europe, Gregory Zilboorg, a psychoanalyst practicing in New York, forged a necessary dynamic connection between narcissism, loneliness and hostility (Atlantic Monthly magazine). The only feature that separates Mr. Trump from his admired dictators is that they are empowered by their militaries while he is not.

In September, I gave a virtual talk at the international conference on loneliness at the University of Szczecin, Together Alone Again, on narcissism, loneliness and self-destructive aggression. And what struck me later was that the great Orson Welles "Citizen Kane" movie highlighted all three themes symbolized at the end by the Freudian "Rosebud."

Your reluctance is why I chose this suicide as memory for you all....

I'm going to end my Isolation, Solitude, Loneliness friday 27-11-202

Let me try to put the issue of loneliness in its proper historical and current perspective. Plato warns of the perennial battle between the giants and the gods, between metaphysical materialism and idealism; between science and humanism; between the disciplines of materialism, mechanism, determinism, empiricism, phenomenalism, behaviorism, and the current neurosciences---the latter which compares the brain to a programmed computer---against dualism, rationalism, idealism, freedom (i.e. epistemic spontaneity or ethical free will), existentialism, and phenomenology. Science is committed to the principle of causality, which allows for the prediction---as well as the control---of both natural phenomena as well as human behavior. Basically the conflict is between brains and minds, between determinism and freedom. In the West, loneliness is ushered in by the Old Testament, the Homeric myths, the tragedies of Sophocles, the dialogues of Plato, the treatises of Aristotle, the Christian Middle Ages, and Descartes cogito which splits and separates self-consciousness from the world and other selves. Today, there are eight billion transient human atoms travelling at increasing velocities throughout the world meaninglessly. The traditional organic bonds of marriage, extended families, tribal configurations, social communities are all being extinguished. Today, there is a growing global pandemic of Loneliness. Britain instituted a Minister of Loneliness, Tracey Crouch (who recently retired), but tried to promote general social interventions by recruiting, businesses, charities, etc., which appear to have resulted in a dismal failure. Other nations as well---Finland, Poland, Japan, and others have also joined their efforts to address the issue. But the reason for England's early failure is that loneliness is intensely intimate and personal and it must be confronted in terms of the uniqueness of its individual structures in consciousness. Unless the internal, subjective dynamics of self-consciousness are understood, all attempts will be doomed to failure. Human being are not reducible to physiological computers, to one hundred billion neuronal cells and electrical synapses in the brain. There is an inexplicable but undeniable intellectual and creative, active, spontaneity in the mind that defies predictability and thus our unique paths as each of us struggles against the universality of loneliness. It begins with the self--and not with science and sociaty.

The first article written solely on the topic of loneliness appeared in the Atlantic Monthly magazine ("Loneliness" in 1938). It was authored by Gregory Zilboorg, a psychoanalyst, and it connected loneliness to both narcissism and hostility. Narcissism is a psychiatric diagnosis. Unlike Axis I disorders, e. g., depression and anxiety, symptoms from which sufferers seek relief and control, in Axis II Personality disorders, the symptoms are lifelong and not only comfortable but constantly seek expression. Clinical features include delusions of grandeur, megalomania, a constant desire for adulation, entitlement issues, exaggerated accomplishments, fantasies of unlimited success , an inability to lose, envy of others, and unbridled aggression and acts of retaliation when challenged (DSM, 301.80). Currently in the US, there is a destructive dynamic between a triad of political entities: The President, the Republican Senate, and a committed "Mass" or "Base" of supporters of the President consisting of some 30-40% of the voters. The news media, e. g., CNN, MSNBC, etc., are astonished that the members of the Senate continue to support the President despite his excesses and outbursts of anger at his detractors and opponents and at the same time they are puzzled by the unswerving loyalty of his Base. The Senate is clearly afraid of losing its tenure in future elections. But the critical dynamic is the unswerving commitment of the Base to the President but both are indelibly connected to their mutual narcissism and desire to express their hostility whenever they both feel slighted. It has nothing to do with the President's political policies. As long as he expresses anger and delusions of revenge, the Mass will follow him because they are angry at what they perceive as disrespect, alienation, and unacknowledgments. In short, the Base identifies with the narcissistic anger of the President. The term dynamic is critical. It means that the source of the loneliness lies in the individual or the group and not in the external world. Narcissism, to be sure, is a normal "ingredient" of selfhood but when it becomes extreme, it is dangerous.

In the Alone Together Again talk (google: ben mijuskovic youtube), I discuss the concept of empathy which was originally a concept coined by Theodor Lipps, an aesthetician. Unlike sympathy or pity, which is one-sided, empathy, as it is related to intimacy, is mutual and reciprocally related between two people. For example, in grief two people sharing the same feelings and meanings concerning an event, e. g., a young couple sharing the death of their child; or an elderly couple learning that one of them has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. This example is a "positive" form of empathy. But there is also a negative form of empathy based on narcissism (Freud, Zilboorg). During the presidential elections in the US, many news commentators from CNN and MSNBC, have expressed puzzlement regarding the loyalty of Mr. Trump's " base." Actually, it is grounded in narcissistic anger. Many of them are unhappy with their lives, angry at others perceived as more fortunate, and angry at themselves. Their empathic support for Mr. Trump is based on his anger. It has nothing to do with his "political" policies. They empathize with his narcissistic anger.

On September 17, 2020, I gave a talk on Consciousness and Loneliness at an international conference, Together Alone Together Again, at the University of Szczecin in Poland, in which I argue that intimacy is the remedy for loneliness. Currently there is a global pandemic of loneliness as nations begin to try to deal with it.

My latest book , Consciousness and Loneliness: Theoria and Praxis, is published by Brill (2019). Whereas my previous work on loneliness began with the premise of universal loneliness, the current study begins with consciousness and argues the inevitability of human loneliness.

On October 17, I gave a talk at an international conference on Loneliness at the University of Szczecin in Poland and it is accessible on google: ben mijuskovic youtube