Stijn Vanheule - Lacanian perspectives on capitalism and its impact on human suffering.

A discussion between Leon Brenner and Stijn Vanheule on capitalism from a Lacanian perspective.

[@Anabsurdsuggestion]

What an amazing discussion. Thank you Stijn, Leon and the whole group.

[@nb77nb]

Really good discussion!! Thanks

[@hashkeeper]

nice. yeah i wonder what insightful texts lacan and baudrillard would have written in the age of social media / isolation. they certainly predicted it, but having their minds in the actual context would have been helpful

[@Anabsurdsuggestion]

Superb.

[@psychoanalyticthinking153]

thank you, how is the play speed for you , i think i loaded a version that is a bit fast, might upload another one

[@psychoanalyticthinking153]

I think it plays better on 0.75 speed. Will maybe add it into the write-up tomorrow.

[@samanmohajer]

​@psychoanalyticthinking153 yes, it plays fast for me.

[@psychoanalyticthinking153]

@@samanmohajer try now. Thank you

[@psychoanalyticthinking153]

next talk on the 28th September Thursday, September 28 Leon Brenner - Against Reality in Psychoanalysis - Part 2 Leon Brenner - Against Reality in Psychoanalysis - Part 2 One of the most common misuses of Freud’s notion of the “reality principle” confuses it with the adaptation of the patient to reality. In doing so, many psychoanalysts and therapists take it on themselves to be the harbingers of an objective reality to which the patient must succumb. However, Freud had never formulated this naïve conception of the reality principle as representing a single objective reality that gives shape to our thoughts. In contrast, Freud postulates that the reality principle solely enables the subject to delay immediate satisfaction in the aim of future satisfaction. This conception accompanied Freud’s teaching from the very moment that he abandoned his seduction theory. mailchi.mp/5504d31398a3/leon-brenner-against-realty-part-2

[@mr.crankyargueta]

🔥🔥🔥

[@lotoreo]

I am confused. I followed Lacanian leftists for a long time now but more and more I'm starting to doubt the knowledge or wisdom or [insert word you'd be more comfortable with]; and I'm thinking, yeah there's probably a very large chance I am simply not understanding what is being argued for, so I'll just "attack" the version of Lacanian leftist analysis I am afraid I *might* be hearing, and then people can correct my misunderstandings as they read along or whatever. So yeah, here we go. I'm getting more and more concerned that a lot of Lacanian thinkers are unconsciously smuggling in pro status-quo types of thought. Let me start with how they define Capitalism here; as a thing that continuously tries to sell you phallic solutions to your fundamental lack (which you experience as obstacles or disturbances of who you are, but really is what you actually are), and here, for me, the problems start. Is the claim that capitalism tries to sell you solutions to your lack in a false way, ei. it sells you solutions it KNOWS won't work, so you keep coming back for more? Or is the claim that capitalism promises solutions to your lack at all? I say this because I am afraid that often "lack" is seen as so fundamental and so wide, essentially ALL forms of trying to overcome suffering, unhappiness, not being who you really ought to be, whatever, are ALL eyed with suspicion or just straight up rejected at first sight. Because it seems to me that then the thinking becomes: "dumb Leftists think that to be a leftist, you have to fight and work for a better world, but REAL leftists understand that nothing actually can ever be qualitatively improved, that anyone promising a better world is just delusional and we all should just accept accept our suffering and unhappiness" - and I hope it's clear for everyone why this thinking is a problem. You say you are against Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which is a correct stance, but then you say that the problem with CBT is that it tries to "fix" something; implying that your beef with CBT is that you simply don't think anything can ever be fixed, and I wonder how deep that belief goes. Is it a categorical rejection of the whole existence of "fixing" "making better" "curing" "improving" etc.? If so, please come forward and say this is your stance, so we can deal with that appropriately. Because my reason for hating CBT is not that it is just another version of capitalism's false promise that we live in a reality where things can be fixed or improved. My reason for hating CBT is that it doesn't actually try to cure you or help you in any way, it's just there as a quick, cost efficient way for "clients" to quickly return to their status as productive worker drones at the behest of capitalism. Real therapy in contrast would allow for (and I think, often lead to) realizing that your way of life (as a capitalist subject) is causing you harm, and that you should quit that life. Like when Franz Fanon tells about a French patient he had, that tortured colonialist subjects, looking for ways to no longer be depressed or distressed so he could do his job better, rather than doing the obvious thing and stop being a torturer. The reason why therapy under capitalism is so shit is that only seeks to fix you as a worker, not as a person; and also because it only wants to give you therapy in such a watered down way that it never accidentally leads to people becoming conscious of what is actually fucking up their life; the state of the world. I think that, if you either give or are going through therapy, there's obviously the expectation baked in to the very activity of therapy itself, that you are there to try and fix or improve someone. If I go to a therapist because I am suicidally depressed, I go to therapy to eventually no longer be suicidally depressed. It it very wrong and unfair for the therapist to then go "ah, but what actually constitutes a "cure"? aren't we just thinking too much in result orientated ways if we want to actually "fix" anything?", right? Can we agree on that? I'm open to the idea that lack will be with us forever and that we need to confront our fundamental lack rather than trying to desperately fix it IF AND ONLY IF it isn't used to rhetorically relativize away any goal or result that therapy is supposed to accomplish. I speak from personal experience, I've been suicidally repressed for I think at least 20 years now, and now, after 12 years of therapy (never psycho-analysis), I decided to pull the plug, after my last therapist decided to use that type of reason on my after I tried to bring up I was unsatisfied with the fact that we were making no progress and I've seen no improvement in my mental state over those last 12 years. This was when he announced he was going to retire, and he was all ready to congratulate himself on the progress we supposedly made, which made me rather mad, because there has been barely any progress these last 12 years. And then he started to become all relativist in response, "philosophically" (more so sophistically) questioning there can be such a thing as "progress" or "getting better" or "cured" at all. I've seen this trend among a lot of caregivers increasing over the past decade too, by the way. By that I mean, the attempts made my them to sell you "doing nothing about the problem" as the solution to the problem. I've been having chronic pain in my back and shoulder area for years and years, and the last professional help I went to see, they - I shit you not - told me, what if you just accept that there is pain? And then that way, it's no longer a problem, and then, we;ll have fixed the problem. Which, maybe I should accept that pain, maybe I shouldn't. But that isn't their fucking job. Their job is to look for ways to make the pain go away, either totally or partially, and for them to suggest doing the literal opposite of that, while trying to sophistically bullshit me into accepting that them explicitly not doing their job is them doing their job, is outrageous. So my question is this: can we salvage Lacanian thought and protect it against the type of though that goes "nothing can fundamentally change, and anyone that says otherwise just wants a phallus" or is that just so fundamental to Lacanian thought we should split with Lacan and just be Marxists?