Thanks for another great episode! I have a question wholy unrelated to this episode but it has been plagueing me for a couple of weeks now and I cannot seem to find a good answer in any literature. Sorry for the polution in this comment section but I could not find a different way of asking the question. In one of your episodes you mentioned that there was a repression of the idea of repression with regards to the American public. As if there was an active meddeling in the dissemination of that idea.  Do you know of any literature that takes up this history? I would love to know more about it.

I can definitely see how racism is the sweet coating on a bitter pill, but it seems more precise to say that the bitter pill is the lack that capitalism attempts to disavow via the racist fantasy. What do you think?

Hey I love the podcast and both of you. But please Ryan go to the point, you don't need to justifiy everything you say or go through a tangent to make you more clear, please. Sometimes it's hard to listen. I'm exactly like you, but i'm working on it.

hi, how do you define racism? Is the "racial" other not just THE other- ie any group that can be identified somehow, so that it can become a figure of hate, which can be used to unite other OTHERS against THIS other?  It provides a scapegoat to...

....escape society's "real" maladies (or contradictions) that are not acknowledged. The ultimate contradiction being that everyone is themself an OTHER. So the only way to unite is around lack...

...why do you need to bring in subject, obstacle and object of desire? It seems to confuse a phenomenon that has been better explained better (above.) The tripartite thing is a thing but not the best way of explaining othering, imo.

The other, in ourselves, is that we always (and will always) lack (??ultimate knowledge) and we displace this self-lack (felt inadequacy) on to something else.

Our central sources of lack maybe our realisation of our own transience and inability to control the situation to make it as we would wish?

It's interesting how one example can lend itself two radically different interpretations. In the model building, there isn't that much enjoyment to be had in the finished model, but rather in all the stumbling blocks along the process of building. But I'd say that (nowadays, or maybe throughout most of the history of philosophy) the far more popular interpretation of the situation is that the enjoyment doesn't come from the finished product, but from the process of building, along the lines of popular wisdoms like "the journey is more important than the destination," as well as philosophers of Becoming like Deleuze ("The being of Being is Becoming", from "Nietzsche and Philosophy"). What makes the proximity of these two disparate interpretations interesting for me is is the “you are traffic” example that Ryan brings up later. “You are traffic-“ that is to say, “you are not an individual rowing on the river of Becoming – you are the river, as is everything else – all is one Becoming.”

Another game revolving around an investigative journalist: Ubisoft’s Beyond Good & Evil

Ryan and Todd engage with Freud's late essay "Negation" (1923). They look at the radical insights that he comes to as well as address the moments where he leaves various theoretical points undeveloped. They make a claim for the outsized importance of this brief essay.

Negation

Ryan and Todd delve into the formal limitations that define the medium of Twitter. They analyze the politics of Twitter and the impact of the takeover by Elon Musk. 

Ryan's article cited in the episode is available here: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol24/iss4/

Twitter

Ryan and Todd discuss Todd's recent book The Racist Fantasy, which explores the psychic structure that underlies racism and that allows it to deliver enjoyment to those invested in it. They cover the role that fantasy plays in social life and the prospects for fighting racism.

https://forgeorganizing.org/article/building-resilient-organizations

https://www.baylorpress.com/9781602587359/trauma-and-race/

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lacan-noir-david-s-marriott/1139152118

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8-VIi7tb44

https://fielddaylab.wisc.edu/

The Racist Fantasy

Ryan and Todd explore the important ideas from Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, focusing especially on Nietzche's historical critique of morality, his perspectivalism, and his notion of the will to power. They situate Nietzsche's breakthrough in relation to Freud's.

Beyond Good and Evil

Ryan and Todd devote this episode to the memory of Mari Ruti, who died on June 8, 2023. They discuss her core theoretical ideas and work through her major works. In addition, they include a few memories of Mari's singular life.

Tribute to Mari Ruti

Ryan and Todd attempt to show why the term "poststructuralism" is inapt for describing any of the thinkers that it usually is thought to indicate. They go through the major theorists known under this moniker and reveal why poststructuralism doesn't exist.

Poststructuralism

Ryan and Todd analyze Freud's essay "The Uncanny" and the broader implications of this concept. They discuss the importance of the uncanny for understanding the horror film and focus on the difference between a psychoanalytic approach to the concept and the notion of the uncanny valley.


Links from the episode:
Žižek & So On podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6S0mig3K8TiuJoXHOG5VnT?si=6a55de55c2f24b22
 
Shibui (minimal groove quartet):
https://shibuimusic.bandcamp.com/
 
Joseph Aisenberg’s Brian De Palma’s Carrie: Studies in the Horror Film:
https://www.amazon.com/Brian-Palmas-Carrie-Studies-Horror/dp/B09NH3BCCP/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3PCVQVVCQ49BW&keywords=joseph+aisenberg&qid=1689001285&sprefix=joseph+aisenber%2Caps%2C205&sr=8-1

Uncanny

Ryan and Todd analyze Freud's essay "Creative Writings and Daydreaming." They look first at the theory of fantasy that Freud develops in this essay and then turn to his conception of what generates the work of art, discussing it in terms of the current strike in Hollywood. In their concluding remarks, they deal with problems that Freud runs into in his theorizing here.

Creative Writers & Daydreaming

Ryan and Todd interpret the film Barbie while responding to both leftist and rightist critiques of the film. They discuss the film's exploration of fantasy, its highlighting of contradiction, and its emphasis on the role of desire in politics.

Barbie

Ryan and Todd unpack Marx's concept of surplus value and explore its fundamental role in the interpretation of capitalist society. They discuss the relationship between surplus value and profit, while considering how we should think about the drive to amass surplus value.

Surplus Value

Ryan and Todd explore the idea of surplus enjoyment as the basis for a theory of capitalism. They consider the psychic hold that capitalism has in terms of the surplus enjoyment that it both promises and provides.

Surplus Enjoyment

Why Theory brings continental philosophy and psychoanalytic theory together to examine cultural phenomena.

The Racist Fantasy

Why Theory

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