Thanks!!!

Thanks for the generous note. That's very gratifying.

I've had plenty of unintentional self-destruction, yet nowhere did the Death Drive enter into my analysis. There are dozens of reasons that humans pass through periods of unhealthy behavior. If a person is not emotionally stable enough to confront themselves, perhaps they should pass on psychoanalysis. After all, it's not meant for the masses, to be honest. Psychoanalysis is the only road to one's unconscious. Period. Because analysis transformed my life and eliminated all my suffering because my parental family was dysfunctional, there is no reason to believe that others will achieve the results I did. Furthermore, I revised psychoanalysis to suit my needs. I created my personalized methodology. Psychoanalysis is a live growing process, like everything is that that does not die from stagnation.

Thanks. I'm really glad to hear that you thought it was effective.

Gj

How does that work? Thats interesting

Ooo, fun thought

I like your point of view！！！！！！！！（It‘s the same when we're dating， isn't it？

Great filmmaker, especially Sweet Hereafter. You're exactly right.

I haven't seen it but have had many people, including my son, recommend it to me. I'll check it out and try to post something.

It's a good point. I definitely agree that capitalism exploits the enjoyment in self-sacrifice of the working class and that this is a danger of any thinking about utilizing death drive. My sense is that the only way to avoid this danger to make a space for it, make allowance for it, rather that trying to utilize it.

Hi Jessica, Thanks for this. I think that you're right to see that Freud's text doesn't lead directly to the position that I take up here. I would want to claim that the idea was so radical when he came up with it that he didn't fully theorize it correctly right away. He gets closer to this in Civilization and Its Discontents, I think, but even there he's invested in an opposition to Eros that I don't think is theoretically sustainable. Best, Todd

I see your point for sure. But I think that the reality of the risk that Ben Wade (Ford) is taking is important. He says that he can escape, but he has betrayed his gang, so he won't have their help this time. His death is a very real possibility, which, to my mind, obviates any idea of his privilege.

@@toddmcgowan8233 Thanks for your reply, Professor.

Yes, thanks for pointing it out. Unfortunately, I had to fix it.

Very nice. There is clearly some conscious decision involved. But I would contend that when he sees his car blow up and throws everything into the flames, he's not acting consciously. This is when the decision is made. Afterward, one wrestles consciously trying to be adequate to one's unconscious act, which is what happens in the scene that I showed here.

@@toddmcgowan8233 Ahh gotcha. Yes, I haven't actually seen the movie so I missed the unconscious act. Loved the overall explanation and I think it makes a lot of sense.

The point is to see self-destruction within the productive, to pay attention to failure as the form that enjoyment takes. That doesn't preclude acting productively, but I would even claim that it's the basis for it.

What you are basically saying, that why isn't he acting like a psychopath without any concept of self or values. Is this what death drive fo you is? That why aren't we all totally selfish and amoral? Outlaw does not mean that the person is bad, and automatically has no morals and acts only totally in their self interest. That kinda childish interpretation.

On another note, the conclusion that value can only be defined through sacrifice or loss and that the satisfaction derived from perpetual loss is the psychological creation of something to be aimed for / transcendent was immensely satisfying. I struggle with addiction, and I can’t help but think that maybe I kind of love the mental chaos that ensues after a relapse because it reenforces the vision I’ve been building for that healthy, balanced person I want to be. It charges that desire to get to that that currently fictitious place-one that depicts several things I value. God, the mind is so strange

Camtasia. I like it a lot.

None that I know of. I would be very interested in reading this as well, but I think that it doesn't exist because the drive to survive and reproduce functions as such an a proiri for Neo-Darwinism. I cannot imagine it without this.

@@toddmcgowan8233 A little late to the party but I have been thinking about this question in relation to an article I just read. It’s from a couple of anthropologists critiquing the book “The Dawn of Everything.” They claim that new evolutionary research is substantial in showing that the human “line” that broke away in relationship to our primate ancestors did so for a few reasons related to their adaptations to the environment and material conditions: cooked food and combined diet (sharing big game kills and relying on gathered foods in the mean time, all amongst bands), females developing year round mating habits beyond other primate females who only have sex when ovulating, new child rearing practices which included eliminating infanticide through mothers gaining trust in other men and women’s care for their children, and that unlike other primates humans began living far beyond the age of menopause, which not only meant elders could pass along knowledge but also care for their young. Now I am not an anthropologist, psychoanalyst or critical theorist but it is fun to think about the ways all of these adaptations for survival could be related to excess, especially as they “move beyond” survival and reproduction by somehow serving it. Not eating the food right away but setting it on fire first, sharing the animal you killed and have claim to with others, caring for other peoples kids, establishing an adaptive role of elders who are beyond the ability to reproduce and beyond “fitness”, and, of course, excessive sex. They are bringing in this evidence for the critique of the previously mentioned book to argue that egalitarianism is actually the foundation of our evolutionary heritage, insofar as it exceeds biological mechanisms of dominance, aggression, and competition. They seem to draw more egoistic claims, that our conscious ability to suppress or sublate these and create “social” standards that limit competition and punish transgressions are what allowed humans to evolve and are defining of our species. I am curious how the picture this paints of evolution itself plays into the idea of an overarching (or more aptly “under” arching) unconscious drive which continuously rewarded the species for their excesses. I know I have read some things about our evolutionary development of play and creativity which would seem to be compatible with humans as creatures of excess enjoyment which goes beyond “mere” survival. I wonder if another way to think of it through the lens of excitation could be the immediate gratification of pleasure, the immediacy of rewards in survival with the introduction of some form of mediation through the “ethical” and development of desire in that way as actually serving the species long-term in its immediate goals. Playing with Kierkegaard’s spheres a bit here with his notion that immediacy is not countered by the ethical but subsumed in it, while the suspension of the ethical (the excesses of the species as the ethical was established) continued to inform the development of the species. I know many species beyond humans engage in play, sex and caretaking, in some form of “excess” that would on the surface seem to move beyond survival so I’m not really trying to make an argument here, just offering some reflections. The aforementioned mentioned article: All Things Being Equal by Nancy Lindisfarne and Jonathan Neale. Published on “the economist.” As an aside, thanks for the video Todd. I am a counselor in training with a prior background in academic theology. I have been trying to break my way into Lacan bit by bit and have enjoyed listening to you and Ryan on Why Theory. Not exactly sure why that’s relevant but I guess I just wanted to say I’m grateful for the perspectives you bring to the world and I believe this theory has power for translation into the applied world but sometimes that seems like the hardest barrier to traverse.

What the fuck is ", SLEEP" 🤔

But for Aristotle, history is always and only just particular history. One can never draw universal conclusions from it. Art, in contrast, tries to apprehend the universal. Even in its failure to do so, it reveals.

@@toddmcgowan8233 What does Aristotle have to do with the fact that you’re using fiction to support the real world points you’re attempting to make? What does history have to do with that? I’ve heard other people discuss this idea while using examples of how it manifests in the real world. I find such examples much more convincing than movie clips where people do things they don’t normally do.

@@toddmcgowan8233 I mean, I could deliver a lecture about human flight and use clips from the Superman franchise, couldn’t I?

@@toddmcgowan8233 fiction reveals truth that reality obscures- RWE. Thanks for the content Prof.

​@@crazyasspsychokillaExactly. Keep thinking Neo, keep thinking 😂