On this episode, Ryan and Todd work through Sigmund Freud's under discussed Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. The hosts first lay out how Freud establishes the group, rather than the individual, as the psyche's primary formation. They then devote time to teasing out the consequences of group dynamics as Freud writes about them in the figures of the Church and the Military, while spending much time talking about the "destructive" character of the couple. Finally, the pair discuss a matter of translation and where the drive (first theorized the year previous to Group Psychology's publication) appears in this short book.
-------- Â
1:14:59
Racecraft
In this episode, Ryan and Todd dedicate a full-length treatment to one of the podcast's most frequently referenced works: Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life by Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields. The hosts move from engaging the term racecraft itself (which, not for nothing, both gets a red squiggle when I write it and the computer keeps separating the two words from each other like it's an error after I insist that it's not) to discussing how and why the book has not had as much mainstream discursive success as others. The hosts tease out the uncomfortable and vital challenge the book puts to readers before finally highlighting the areas in which the Fields' project overlaps with psychoanalytic concepts. Note the below is referenced in the episode: Jacobin interview with Karen and Barbara Fields
-------- Â
1:13:55
A.I.
In this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss the effect artificial intelligence is having on higher education, primarily through commentary on ChatGPT. They first discuss how immediacy and the elimination of labor are key to ChatGPT's appeal before moving to discuss how it produces an idea of what Lacan would term the Big Other and how its ruling logic is one of emergent consensus. They end by arguing that ChatGPT inverts Rick Boothby's axiom that "the Big Other doesn't know" and how that introduces a damaging psychic dilemma.
-------- Â
1:21:58
Slavoj Žižek: An Overview
Kicking off a new Overview sub series of podcasts, Ryan and Todd discuss the influential ideas of Hegelian-Lacanian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek. After discussing Žižek's defining contribution in bringing the study of Hegel and the study of Lacan together, the two hosts move through three ideas apiece that each influenced their own work and their own thinking.
-------- Â
1:19:18
Euphemism
Ryan and Todd discuss the political implications of the societal tendency toward euphemism. They theorize euphemism ultimately as a tool of the reactionary forces and as a way of blunting the necessity of critique. Euphemisms make the people employing them feel better while furthering the very structure of oppression that the euphemism claims to ameliorate.
South Africa