The title to Amanda Montell's The Age of Magical Overthinking is a bit of a misnomer. While this is, at times, a book about overthinking, more often tThe title to Amanda Montell's The Age of Magical Overthinking is a bit of a misnomer. While this is, at times, a book about overthinking, more often than not, it is a book about slanted or distorted forms of thought. Each chapter explores a particular logical fallacy, cognitive bias, or flaw in reasoning, and Montell explicates these concepts with helpful references to popular culture and personal experience. For example, an early chapter unpacks the halo effect in reference to Taylor Swift fandom.
The Age of Magical Overthinking is an excellent introduction for anyone curious about the mistakes in reasoning our brains so often make. If, however, a reader is familiar with these concepts, The Age of Magical Overthinking may not be worth the effort. ...more
This is maybe my favorite novel thus far this year. In addition to possessing a clear and palpable horror vibe, the novel explores the consequences ofThis is maybe my favorite novel thus far this year. In addition to possessing a clear and palpable horror vibe, the novel explores the consequences of compromising one's art and how the art object itself might fight back and assert its agency. ...more
In the opening pages of Alenka Zupančič's The Odd One In, she stakes a compelling claim about comedy's relationship to the universal and the concrete.In the opening pages of Alenka Zupančič's The Odd One In, she stakes a compelling claim about comedy's relationship to the universal and the concrete. She writes, "Comedy is not the undermining of the universal, but its (own) reversal into the concrete; it is not an objection to the universal, but the concrete labor or work of the universal itself. Or, to put it in a single slogan: comedy is the universal at work" (27). Here, Zupančič explores the dialectical, which is to say, non-binary relationship between the universal and the concrete. Zupančič seeks to understand how the universal can manifest itself in the concrete; she calls this process "comedy."
When this comedic process becomes apparent or is concretized, it manifests as the subject. Zupančič writes, "In comedy, the subject is (or becomes) the universal, the essential, the absolute. Which is to say that the universal, the essential, the absolute becomes the subject" (28). For example, Zupančič recalls Lacan's commentary on lunacy. She writes, "A lunatic is not some poor chap who believes that he is a king; a lunatic is a king who believes that he really is a king. Does this not hold even more for comedy? It is not some poor chap who believes himself to be a king who is comical (this is rather pathetic), but a king who believes that he really is a king" (32). Building on Lacan, Zupančič understands the comic as the gap that is constitutive to subjectivity. For Zupančič, comedy is not just the lack of subjectivity, but also the subject's failure to recognize this lack.
This lack, and the corresponding failure to recognize it, produces an excess that is unmistakably comedic. Zupančič writes, "One could say that the flaws, extravagances, excesses, and so-called human weaknesses of comic characters are precisely what account for their not being 'only human.' More precisely, they show us that what is 'human' exists only in this kind of excess over itself" (49). Zupančič explores the transcendent quality that comedic subjectivity possesses because, again, if a random person saw themselves as a king, this would fail the comedic test. Instead, only a king who truly believes themselves to be the king is comic. The former is pathic, a lack without an excess, but the latter is excess coupled with lack. But the larger theoretical point Zupančič makes builds on Hegelian dialectics, specifically the irreconcilable tension between lack and excess. Zupančič writes, "In other words, what is comical is not simply how words can move a very long way from sense-reality, how they can be completely detached from it, but, rather, the fact that, even in this detachment, they still function pretty well, and produce material effects of truth. What is comical is not simply their disjunction but, rather, the 'impossible' points of their joint articulation" (83). Even when using language as an example, Zupančič suggests that the impossibility of articulation simultaneously produces some possibilities. Dialectics is this tension between two opposing forces, but in that tension, something generative emerges, and in that emergence, we rebound back to the irreconcilability of the dialectical process. Properly understood, dialectics asks us to reckon with this irreconcilability, not resolve it. This is why comedy, unlike tragedy, "always materializes and gives a body to what can otherwise appear as an unspeakable, infinite Mystery" (210). ...more
Just fine, I guess? I always dig L.A. as a setting, but the novel needs to do more to establish that setting. With that said, American Girls effectiveJust fine, I guess? I always dig L.A. as a setting, but the novel needs to do more to establish that setting. With that said, American Girls effectively establishes the relationship between the two primary characters. ...more
Bitter is a novel about how to make the world a better place. Among other things, the book explores the merits and limitations of both violent and nonBitter is a novel about how to make the world a better place. Among other things, the book explores the merits and limitations of both violent and nonviolent forms of protest; however, at its core, Bitter is a novel about art's revolutionary potential. ...more
K. Daniel Cho's Genius After Psychoanalysis offers a fresh and thought-provoking reinterpretation of the genius. In the introduction, Cho explores theK. Daniel Cho's Genius After Psychoanalysis offers a fresh and thought-provoking reinterpretation of the genius. In the introduction, Cho explores the troubling associations the genius carries in contemporary culture, one he defines as "problematic" due to its "associations with natural hierarchy and inequality" (4). However, a psychoanalytic intervention "gives us the necessary materials to construct an account of genius that doesn't rely on notions of innate ability and inborn talent" (4). Psychoanalysis achieves this egalitarianism with two key concepts: the drive and sublimation.
According to Cho, the drive "marks the point of incommensurability between the human and its environment," which Cho later characterizes as "the inhuman within the human" (5). The drive is disharmony, disunity, and agitation. If subjects lived free from the locomotion of the drive, they may, in theory, do nothing. They may simply concede to death. While placing the subject at odds with itself and its environment, the drive animates the subject.
While utilizing the psychoanalytic drive to theorize the genius, Cho adds little to it as a theoretical concept. Sublimation, however, is a different story. A conventional understanding of sublimation suggests that libidos or impulses that might otherwise be socially unacceptable are, thanks to sublimation, channeled into acceptable behaviors and practices. By contrast, for Cho, sublimation is best understood as "contentment with our discontentment...a satisfaction in dissatisfaction" (6). This leads Cho to conclude that "genius is the sublimation of the drive" (7). He continues, "It [genius] is not a hereditary trait or 'an inborn productive faculty.' It has nothing to do with virtuosos or savants, impressive algorithms or generational talents. It is not an inner secret to unlock or unleash...genius is a particular relation of the drive, a relation that finds satisfaction in our inevitable dissatisfaction, a relation that transforms this discontentment into its own form of contentment" (7). Later in Section 1, he unpacks this thesis in more detail: "They [the genius] are...someone who has turned their curiosity into a nonsexual aim by 'renouncing libidinal satisfaction' itself as the ultimate aim of the drive" (37). As Cho sees it, Freud interprets sublimation as a frustrating but satisfactory compromise. For Freud, when we engage in sublimation, we access those libidinal impulses partially, which, I suppose, is better than not at all. For Cho, however, sublimation in the hands of the genius is renunciation, and the genius's willingness to renunciate is what makes them a genius. Since the genius pursues "an aim without any of the objects needed to achieve that aim," its pursuits lack a clear telos. In this act of deemphasizing the object, the genius elevates "the process of inquiry itself" over any desired result (37). Since we rarely think of geniuses as failures, Cho's theory upends convention by situating failure and repetition as central to his psychoanalytically inclined definition of the genius.
Genius After Psychoanalysis effectively illustrates what good critical theory, especially psychoanalytic theory, does. Cho's theory of the genius is egalitarian since we all "fail to die" (179). Perhaps all subjects are geniuses because we all prolong life by "maintaining the contradiction that enables it: namely, the contradiction within death itself" (180). Cho concludes, "The genius is the being who fails at being a being toward death—a failure that puts them on that long detour called life" (180). ...more
Near the end of Blown Away, a touching memoir about his son's suicide, Richard Boothby explores the significance of the unknowability of the people clNear the end of Blown Away, a touching memoir about his son's suicide, Richard Boothby explores the significance of the unknowability of the people closest to us, which is to say, the people we love. He writes, "Yet the truth is that what we don't know of our loved ones, far from diminishing our relationship with them, is an enduring part of the richness of the bond that ties us to them. The really crucial dimensions of our existence, the situations that invite us to respond most authentically to life...remains in large part beyond knowing" (289-290). As this passage demonstrates, Boothby infuses so much of Blown Away with psychoanalytic insights. For psychoanalysis, one way to define love is as a gap, a distance, or an absence. What we know about those we love certainly animates that love. Still, Boothby argues that a lack of proximity is necessary for the creativity and reconceptualizing required to sustain love of all sorts (filial, erotic, etc.). For both Boothby and psychoanalysis, love is an opening, an invitation, a drive, even. The process of searching for what our love means is when "something unconscious [becomes] conscious" (291). ...more
I knew very little about the history of internet influencers before reading Extremely Online, and the thing I find most interesting is Lorenz's refraiI knew very little about the history of internet influencers before reading Extremely Online, and the thing I find most interesting is Lorenz's refrain regarding traditional, established media and its failures to integrate new media over the past two decades. With Extremely Online, we once again see how traditional media has failed its consumers. ...more
NOTE: This is a pamphlet called Bodies to Wear, initially published by Everyday Analysis. I wanted to write about it, but Goodreads doesn't have the pNOTE: This is a pamphlet called Bodies to Wear, initially published by Everyday Analysis. I wanted to write about it, but Goodreads doesn't have the pamphlet listed. Here's a link: https://everyday-analysis.sellfy.stor...
*** According to Patricia Gherovici, psychoanalysis "was born of body trouble" (2). While the psychoanalytic process focuses on non-corporeal phenomena, we do ourselves and psychoanalysis a disservice by emphasizing the psyche at the expense of the body. Ironically, the most emblematic signifier of psychoanalysis, the couch, understands the importance of the body in the analytic process. Gherovici writes, "For Freud, the couch served to position patients in a state of free association, their bodies reclined and their gaze averted" (4). For the patient to engage in free association, the body and the mind require the proper orientation. Contra figures like Judith Butler, the body and all its associations are more than "performances, dynamically interwoven" (11). As Gherovici attests, "as the transgender movement gained visibility...it brought forth a critical counterargument: that the corporeal reality of gender is significant, thereby rejecting the idea that gender is merely a parody" (11). Thanks to recent interventions from figures like Miquel Missé, psychoanalysis is positioned to help redefine "the relationship between self and body" (14). But how we do this, how we "reconcile the body we have with the self are" is of critical concern for Gherovici is this text (13).
What is most revelatory about being trans, as the name implies, is the trans subject's rejection of stasis. Gherovici writes, "To undergo a true transformation, one must navigate this death of the self to emerge anew, reclaiming a body that feels authentic. Thus, gender transition intertwines deeply with themes of mortality, blurring the lines between life and death far more than between male and female" (17). As Gherovici sees it, life (as an isolated concept) is akin to Freud's pleasure principle, a drive toward inactivity (as counterintuitive as it sounds). By contrast, death is the death drive, properly understood as a drive for excitation or, when thinking of questions of sex and gender, iteration and re-birth. Gherovici writes, "If trans analysands experience 'gender trouble,' as Butler puts it, and resolve the 'trouble' finding themselves in a trans identity, I propose a movement from death to life, which would make us consider death more as a life force, a force that allows for a re-birth" (24). Yet, because the death drive is never satisfied, moments of re-birth are less about "'having' but a strategy of 'being'" (24). "Having" sounds teleological, but for Gherovici, being trans means rejecting teleological configurations. Perhaps because we are all, at least for now, embodied subjects, the body and its flailing attempts "to be" is a site of emancipatory politics because we all fail in our "fluctuating" embodied endeavors (25).
What I like so much about this text is how Gherovici frames trans subjectivity as artistic expression. She writes, "It is essential to recognize that choosing to undergo bodily transformation and embracing a gender different from the one assigned at birth can serve as a powerful act of creation—a renaissance, a re-birth that renders life livable" (27). I think this explains why so many conservatives, frankly, hate trans people. Conservatism rejects progress, by definition. Therefore, it makes complete sense that they would direct their anger and hate toward the cohort that represents progress in the most emancipatory way possible. What I also like about this text is its usefulness as a tool for understanding key psychoanalytical concepts. In addition to being relatively short and digestible, Bodies to Wear can be a helpful primer for anyone interested in learning more about psychoanalysis. ...more
Why is it important to theorize humor? Simon Critchley's answer in On Humour is a universal one. He writes, "Humour is an exemplary practice because iWhy is it important to theorize humor? Simon Critchley's answer in On Humour is a universal one. He writes, "Humour is an exemplary practice because it is a universal human activity that invites us to become philosophical spectators upon our lives" (18). Critchley's suggestion that humor "invites" subjects to philosophical speculation, which is best understood as a necessity that the subject can reject but with severe consequences. According to Critchley, most communicative interactions result in sensus communis, which is to say, common sense. But humor functions "as moments of dissensus communis" because "humour is a paradoxical form of speech and action that defeats our expectations, producing laughter with its unexpected verbal inversions, contortions and explosions, a refusal of everyday speech that lights up the everyday" (19). For Critchley, defamiliarization is one of humor's key features, but so is his theory of humor's debt to Hegel. Humor is a transcendent encounter that exists in the non-transcendent material (i.e., sensus communis). Humor simultaneously gestures beyond sensus communis (i.e., dissensus communis) while also grounding itself in sensus communis, which Critchley suggests is the way humor can "recall us to" common sense (18).
All of these initial musings render humor paradoxical. But humor's paradoxical contours reify the subject's paradoxical contours. Critchley writes, "Humour confirms the human being's eccentric position in nature, as improper within it, as reflectively alienated from the physical realm of the body and external nature. Yet, on the other hand, what takes place in humour, particularly in satire, is the constant overstepping of the limit between the human and the animal, demonstrating their uneasy neighbourhood. But, bringing together both sides of this paradox, we might say that the studied incongruities of humour show the eccentric position of the human in nature...The human being is anphibious, like a boat drawn up on the shore, half in the water, half out of it" (36). This recalls Freud's theory of the unconscious, which suggests that humans possess, for example, affirmative qualities and the inverse of those qualities. All of this indicates that humanity has something "ridiculous" about it, and it is this ridiculousness that humor effectively uncovers, whether we like it or not (59).
For Critchley, humor is a reckoning with contradiction (i.e., paradox). For Critchley, humor articulates how divided, wretched, and ridiculous we are, but, for Critchley, "our wretchedness in our greatness" (111). Humor reveals what is unmistakably finite and infinite about us. Moments of infinity cannot exist beyond our finitude because the finite has housed within it points of infinity. ...more
Set in the early 1990s in a materially comfortable Pittsburgh suburb, The Perks of Being a Wallflower remains one of the more vulnerable pieces of ficSet in the early 1990s in a materially comfortable Pittsburgh suburb, The Perks of Being a Wallflower remains one of the more vulnerable pieces of fiction from my lifetime. The novel's vulnerability, specifically Charlie's willingness to show his unrestrained emotions, is what makes this novel so compelling. At a time when young men could expect a homophobic slur for expressing certain sorts of emotions (anger, by contrast, was more than acceptable, but emotional pain, for example, was not), Charlie remains unencumbered. This tendency lends The Perks of Being a Wallflower a degree of authenticity that many works within the genre lack.
The bildungsroman (formative narratives) is a genre rich with tropes, but what The Perks of Being a Wallflower shows is how truth (i.e., content) emerges through form, not by circumventing it. ...more
What, if any, emancipatory potential does the film form have? This is the question Helen Rollins' Psychocinema attempts to explore. Situated at the inWhat, if any, emancipatory potential does the film form have? This is the question Helen Rollins' Psychocinema attempts to explore. Situated at the intersection of psychoanalysis and Hegelian dialectics, Psychocinema prioritizes the "Analyst's Discourse" as a means of understanding film's emancipatory potential (3). According to Rollins, "the Analyst's Discourse works according to the unconscious, affective and libidinal dynamics of the practice of psychoanalysis" (5). Rollins prefers the Analyst's Discourse because, unlike the University Discourse, which "makes its critiques at the level of consciousness," it reckons with the unconscious in ways the other discourses do not (5). With that said, this book needs more commentary about and exploration of Lacan's discourses.
Because of Rollins' emphasis on the unconscious, Psychocinema possesses "an openness toward contradiction in the understanding of film" (7). That is to say, "film" can expose "our reality back to us [and] can reveal—intentionally or not—the symptoms of our collective disquiet" (13). Psychoanalysis teaches that subjectivity is the often uncomfortable process of grappling with lack, the impossibility of mastery, and the contradictions that follow such reckonings. At its best, film exposes us to these ideas "in generative and enjoyable ways" (13).
Despite the dominance of capitalism as both an economic and philosophic system, film (as an industry defined by its drive for capital accumulation) has the potential to shift the subject's understanding of itself, but film does this on psychoanalytic, not political grounds. Rollins writes, "Film is not political in its representational qualities, but in its psychoanalytic characteristics. Unless art transforms the libido, it remains within the capitalist register" (109). According to Rollins, film does this in several ways, from revealing the divided, lacking nature of the Other to dramatizing the subject's accumulation of jouissance by endlessly "circling...the lost object" (116). When film rejects dominant ideologies by unpacking them for what they are, film is both emancipatory and psychoanalytic. Consider, for example, the romantic comedy genre, an ideological construction that subliminally suggests the necessity of complementarianism for any romantic coupling to work. Through her reading of Phantom Thread, Rollins uncovers the emancipatory potential in sabotaging one's relationship. What fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) wants from a foreign waitress named Alma Elson (Vicky Krieps), and what she wants from him, is not complementarianism (i.e., the imaginary ideal), despite what each character might say. Instead, by "sabotaging their relationship, they luxuriate in the fantasy of a perfect fit and do not realize that it is the imperfection of the other—that each seeks to dominate the other and have them yield to their own desire—that sustains that very desire" (120).
In its brevity, Psychocinema says something profound about film and what, when oritentated correctly, film can accomplish. ...more
A common, clichéd leftist refrain regarding the exploitative nature of capitalism sounds something like this: There is no ethical consumption under caA common, clichéd leftist refrain regarding the exploitative nature of capitalism sounds something like this: There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. In Lacanian terms, this cliché conjures Lacan's point that a metadiscursive position cannot exist. To Liz Pelly's credit, Mood Machine interrogates capitalist consumption without reducing said assumption to the refrain I just described. If anything, Pelly's problem with capitalist consumption, specifically regarding music, is how consumers too often slouch while consuming. That is to say, for Pelly, there is only slouching consumption under capitalism.
Pelly defines this slouching consumption as algorithmic passivity. She writes, "If the streaming economy has contributed to any major cultural shift in recent history, it might be that it has helped champion this dynamic of passivity...its model listener would just simply hit play or skip" (36). This is not to say that one consumes unethically when one wants some sound to fill a space or moment in time. Pelly, for example, suggests, "The compulsion to soundtrack the mundane moments of everyday life feels eternal" (37). Instead, Pelly's problem with passive listening, especially concerning companies like Spotify, has less to do with user preferences in themselves and more with how those disengaged preferences influence music as a communal experience and artist compensation. She writes, "It follows that a population paying so little conscious attention to music would also believe it deserving so little financial remuneration" (37). All of that is to say, when consumers pay so little attention to not only what they listen to but how they listen to it, they exist in "silos" with no "connections" (103). Plus, listeners are disincentivized to think about the artist's material conditions because thinking of material conditions kills vibes. Pelly writes, "Shaping user behaviors around its own discovery tools puts Spotify in an outsized position of power; it shifted value away from the musicians and labels that supplied the material it relied on, and toward its own brand...if Spotify could shape user behavior around coming to the platform for certain playlists, certain moods, certain vibes, then it would maintain control over the user experience" (56). In other words, Spotify wants users slouching toward a vibe. ...more
Save a Dickens novel or two, this is maybe the longest novel I have read in my life (my digital copy concludes at well over 800 pages). Many reviews sSave a Dickens novel or two, this is maybe the longest novel I have read in my life (my digital copy concludes at well over 800 pages). Many reviews suggest A Little Life is a pessimistic novel, but I cannot help but disagree. A Little Life expresses an unmistakable psychoanalytic insight: we suffer our enjoyment, and specifically regarding the novel's central romantic relationship, the promise of complementarianism in romantic relationships is a fallacy. In short, A Little Life is a book about lack. ...more
NOTE: This is a pamphlet called Four Essays on Palestine, initially published by Everyday Analysis. I wanted to write about it, but Goodreads doesn't NOTE: This is a pamphlet called Four Essays on Palestine, initially published by Everyday Analysis. I wanted to write about it, but Goodreads doesn't have the pamphlet listed. Here's a link: https://everyday-analysis.sellfy.stor...
***
This short collection is everything the introduction suggests it will be. Brief and concise, Burgis explores, describes, and characterizes the Israel/Palestine conflict through the lens of non-sectarian, emancipatory egalitarianism. He writes, "If we want to oppose Zionism…should we do that by vicariously adopting Palestinian ethnonationalism, or by appealing to absolutely universal standards of democracy and human rights?" (12). For Burgis, making egalitarian appeals means rejecting any ethno-state, whether that state belongs to Jewish or Palestinian people....more
NOTE: This is a pamphlet called Against Reality, initially published by Everyday Analysis. I wanted to write about it, but Goodreads doesn't have the NOTE: This is a pamphlet called Against Reality, initially published by Everyday Analysis. I wanted to write about it, but Goodreads doesn't have the pamphlet listed. Here's a link: https://everyday-analysis.sellfy.stor...
***
Brenner begins Against Reality with a provocative declaration: "I believe there is nothing more perverse than being a realist" (7). Later, Brenner clarifies this assertion by making a thought-provoking reference to institutions and their power. He writes, "By analyzing the role of realism in institutions, we can uncover how these entities perpetuate certain power dynamics and ideologies, shaping our collective understanding of reality" (9). In short, institutions subtly promulgate particular sets of ideologies by assuming a degree of outsized ownership over reality as a conceptual entity. This is far from a new idea (see Foucault), but it foregrounds Brenner's exploration of reality and how, if properly understood, psychoanalysis should discourage subjects from "adapting" to reality (12).
Brenner wants to rethink the role of the reality principle, specifically the presumption that the reality principle renders moot the pleasure principle. He writes, "The reality principle does not cancel out the pleasure principle. It perpetuates it...the reality principle comes to assure the satisfaction of the pleasure principle" (17). Here, Brenner understands the reality principle as not objective reality but, instead, as that which fortifies the subject's existence. He writes, "There is nothing objective about the reality principle for Freud. It is about what reality can hold together for the subject" (18). What I like about this formulation is how it refuses a linear trajectory from pleasure to reality. If anything, Brenner moves in reverse order. Reality exists as a means of gesturing back to pleasure. In short, we move from reality back to pleasure. Reality is a way to intersect the inevitability of pleasure, or, as Brenner writes, "The reality principle mediates the pleasure principle and is not outside of it" (20).
In addition to citing Freud, Brenner also references Lacan and how, for Lacan, references to reality are "about structures of language" (22). By reading Freud the way he does, Lacan believes "there is no reality principle that nullifies the pleasure principle" because "they always come together" (24). Once again, I want to emphasize Brenner's rejection of a linear trajectory of the pleasure principle. The reality principle and pleasure principle are not stages or levels; the subject of the reality principle is simultaneously the subject of the pleasure principle. What Lacan calls "psychic reality is the aspect of pleasure that is captured by the symbolic, or, in other words, mediated by the structures of language" (25-26).
We must, therefore, conclude that "psychic reality" is "a phantasmatic construction that masks the traumatic loss constituting it and against which it defends" (32-33). For example, Brenner cites the popular Freudian father who dreams that his son is burning. In the dream, the son comes to his father and asks, "Father, can't you see that I am burning?" Lacan thinks the father woke so "he could continue dreaming" (32). According to Brenner, Lacan means that "fantasy and reality have a similar structure: both are constituted on the basis of excluding the repressed" (32). In short, "What wakes the father is something unreal, something external to reality" (33). Here, Brenner references the Lacanian Real, which is to say, that which is "unwitnessable" (34). The Real is that which is beyond symbolic representation. We cannot experience or witness it because it is the site of the traumatic non-representational, yet the Real has unmistakable power. All of this matters to Brenner because "demanding that the subject wakes up and adapt to objective reality is like demanding the subject to take part in death, demanding the impossible" (35).
Chatter about realism is, according to Brenner, a perverse way of framing the impossibility of escaping lack. The best we can hope to accomplish this is to keep the traumatic kernel of our existence extimité. ...more