Your pointless thoughts & observations

[Zephyr_Nova]

iirc oedipus complex is an unconscious urge to fuck one's mom, resulting in dad envy + every mental illness.  so oedipus censorship would be suppressing the unconscious incest urge... and apparently the author's saying ppl with schizophrenia don't do that.  He's calling them all mom fuckers.  That's what I got from it, anyway.  (As if mental illness didn't already have enough stigma attached to it...)

[dcom]

19 minutes ago, Zephyr_Nova said:

iirc oedipus complex is an unconscious urge to fuck one's mom, resulting in dad envy

Freud's description is actually more generic, it's the child's sexual desire towards the opposite-sex parent and hatred of the same-sex parent. The thing is that the theory is based on Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, where Oedipus' parents are foretold at his birth that he will kill his father and marry his mother, and he is sent away to avoid the prophecy - but of course the prophecy will be fulfilled, although Oedipus doesn't know that until the end; when he investigates who killed his father, and when he and his mother find out, the mother hangs herself and Oedipus pokes out his eyes. For Freud to jump from a Greek play to incest murder porn is probably due to the copious amounts of cocaine he medicated himself (and his patients with neurasthenia) with.

Edited September 26, 2021 by dcom

[Alcofribas]

27 minutes ago, brian trageskin said:

no. i just wanna check if drillkicker actually understands the stuff he posts. i don't give a shit about freudian theory.

that’s so cool

[LimpyLoo]

6 minutes ago, Zephyr_Nova said:

iirc oedipus complex is an unconscious urge to fuck one's mom, resulting in dad envy + every mental illness.  so oedipus censorship would be suppressing the unconscious incest urge... and apparently the author's saying ppl with schizophrenia don't do that.  He's calling them all mom fuckers.  That's what I got from it, anyway.  (As if mental illness didn't already have enough stigma attached to it...)

 After Freud, the Object Relations folks de-literalized the Oedipal stuff:

"Father" = superstructure of norms, laws, punishments, traditions, expectations, etc

"Mother" - Nourishment, intimacy, acceptance/validation, boobies, non-neglect, etc

 

 

[Cryptowen]

18 minutes ago, Alcofribas said:

go off on this king

i'll acknowledge at the outset that my perspective may well just be a product of my particular worldview (ie, as someone who's been irrationally wary of any sort of authority figure since early childhood, and tends to gravitate to emotionally intense experiences as if their intensity alone gave them authenticity), but...I basically view the psychiatric apparatus as largely being used to enforce social normativity. There's this idea of the "well-adjusted" individual who fits comfortably into the existing social structure, and with that comes the implication that any negative reaction to the existing structure is a defect to be treated. The individual is made to see his negative feelings in terms of his isolated experience, his personal history, his egoic desires etc. The content of the negative feeling is to be deconstructed, or expressed within the "safe" confines of mainstream discourse. The possibility of a large number of individuals recognizing that they share these negative feelings, and could in fact fight in the name of these feelings (rather than simply making vague allusion to them in socially-permitted conversation) is stymied.

I typically see people online responding to eccentric or angry outbursts with "seek help!"...the question is, seek help doing what? seek help becoming comfortable with a world that makes you uncomfortable? seek help learning to watch the news without gagging? seek help learning how to be "chill"? imo the implication in all this is that the primary purpose of life is to just be comfortable, to fit in, to accept the hand that's been dealt to you. for me this is not the purpose of life at all. for me the purpose of life is to work to uphold an ideal - be that ideal aesthetic, moral, political, social, etc. (i'm not saying it should be the same ideal for everyone). for me there's a sense of wanting to be true to an inner feeling - whether or not that means my life is comfortable, or accepted by others, or financially viable. in fact i'm pretty sure that most things i've accomplished that i'm actually proud of, most things that i look back on fondly many years later, were the product of tremendous inner tension & emotional malaise. Periods of my life where i've just been "chill" felt like a year, two years, five years going by as a blur, until i reached a point where i just got frustrated with the artificiality of it all

But! I also recognize that simply wanting to stare unblinking at the sickness of lfie isn't going to bring about massive social change (or even meaningful artistic output). i recognize that there's a certain kind of individual (myself) for whom these states hold quite an appeal. You're always going to have your dissidents, your would-be revolutionaries, your hermits, your malcontents etc who will naturally gravitate to these outlier positions, whether or not their efforts succeed in bringing about any kind of social or personal transformation. You're also going to have a certain kind of individual who really does just want to be normal, to fit in, to have a good time - and there's nothing shameful about that. I think for that kind of individual something like psychiatry probably makes a lot of sense (heck, maybe they even make better art when they feel more "stable" and not bogged down by their emotions). Then you also have a great number of individuals who are somewhere in the middle - they recognize that their might be some deeper truth to their discontent, but at the same time they recognize that there's something to be said for making an effort to fit in, and to get over yourself. For them, it's a process of determining to what degree they indulge their eccentricities, and to what degree they attempt to conform to an imperfect social machine. imo this is what most people are doing most of the time, and it's only on rare ocassions that things tip over, and a large number suddenly feel compelled to FIGHT DA POWAH

 

also i more or less agree with most of what Deleuze & Guattari have to say on the matter. Nick Land as well, but he's also a case study in how trying to rise up & strike the lightning can have some unintended ripple effects on a person's life

[drillkicker]

Wow, a lot of responses.  Obviously I'm not very good at summarizing philosophy, because this passage makes a lot more sense in the context of Deleuze and Guattari's ideas.  I'm not scared of schizophrenia because of what it is but because people who have it are incompatible with "normal" society and become victims because of it.

Edit:  I'm going to try not to attempt any more summaries of philosophical concepts anymore.

7 hours ago, Zephyr_Nova said:

iirc oedipus complex is an unconscious urge to fuck one's mom, resulting in dad envy + every mental illness.  so oedipus censorship would be suppressing the unconscious incest urge... and apparently the author's saying ppl with schizophrenia don't do that.  He's calling them all mom fuckers.  That's what I got from it, anyway.  (As if mental illness didn't already have enough stigma attached to it...)

See, this is an example of how the passage makes more sense with prior knowledge of D+G.  Their claim is that the Oedipus complex isn't a natural part of human development, but that it's actually something that happens as a response to socially enforced repression.  That's why the word Oedipus is used the way it is in poststructural philosophy.

Edit:  oops I already broke my rule

Edited September 27, 2021 by drillkicker

[brian trageskin]

yeah i guess i'm just prejudiced against anything related to freud and psychoanalysis, because his concepts are unfalsifiable. maybe these french philosophers were logically consistent in their reasoning and came up with interesting solutions to philosophical problems or whatever, i don't know. i'd need to read their stuff to find that out (which i'm not gonna do). but at the end of the day, are deleuze and guattari's concepts falsifiable? that's what i'm interested in. 

[Brisbot]

27 minutes ago, brian trageskin said:

yeah i guess i'm just prejudiced against anything related to freud and psychoanalysis, because his concepts are unfalsifiable. maybe these french philosophers were logically consistent in their reasoning and came up with interesting solutions to philosophical problems or whatever, i don't know. i'd need to read their stuff to find that out (which i'm not gonna do). but at the end of the day, are deleuze and guattari's concepts falsifiable? that's what i'm interested in. 

Well at least he tried. Biology before Darwin/Evolution was also a bit weird.

[user]

No offers/buyers on discogs for almost 2 months. Almost all the stuff I have is set to allow offers but in my experience it’s more common for people to just pay the asking price. Today within a 60 minute timespan I get 2 offers on 2 totally unrelated releases. Both offerers are from Portugal, I’m in NL  

 

 

[dcom]

13 minutes ago, user said:

No offers/buyers on discogs for almost 2 months.

What do you have for sale? Link?

[drillkicker]

9 hours ago, brian trageskin said:

yeah i guess i'm just prejudiced against anything related to freud and psychoanalysis, because his concepts are unfalsifiable. maybe these french philosophers were logically consistent in their reasoning and came up with interesting solutions to philosophical problems or whatever, i don't know. i'd need to read their stuff to find that out (which i'm not gonna do). but at the end of the day, are deleuze and guattari's concepts falsifiable? that's what i'm interested in. 

Deleuze and Guattari aren't logical philosophers.  Poststructuralism isn't concerned with the truth, it's about finding ideas that produce interesting results.  Logic can always be used to support completely disparate and conflicting beliefs about reality, but what's more fruitful is analyzing these beliefs themselves, and how they act against human society and against each other.  They call this kind of thinking schizoanalysis.  Logical systems always break apart at the seams, but schizoanalysis transcends logic, it adapts and repeats eternally.

[brian trageskin]

yeah i guess i'm really not interested in philosophies that aren't concerned with the truth, lol.

have you heard of the sokal affair btw? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

[drillkicker]

32 minutes ago, brian trageskin said:

yeah i guess i'm really not interested in philosophies that aren't concerned with the truth, lol.

have you heard of the sokal affair btw? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

Why do you insist on bringing me into your conversations?  Find someone else to talk with about the sokal affair.  Message @Cryptowenor something.

[brian trageskin]

7 minutes ago, drillkicker said:

Why do you insist on bringing me into your conversations? 

the reason is simple: you're the author of flamboyant postmodern-infused posts and i'm just checking if you truly understand the meaning of what you post or if you just parrot what others say. the sokal affair is an interesting case in this regard. my goal isn't to own you or anything btw. 

[drillkicker]

2 hours ago, brian trageskin said:

the reason is simple: you're the author of flamboyant postmodern-infused posts and i'm just checking if you truly understand the meaning of what you post or if you just parrot what others say. the sokal affair is an interesting case in this regard. my goal isn't to own you or anything btw. 

OK but what does the sokal affair have to do with me or anything I've said

Also:

 

Edited September 27, 2021 by drillkicker

[brian trageskin]

13 hours ago, drillkicker said:

OK but what does the sokal affair have to do with me or anything I've said

well, the sokal affair was part of the so-called "science wars", in which several proponents of scientific realism questioned the epistemology of postmodern thinkers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars - since you seem to be quite fond of deleuze and guattari, i thought this type of constructive criticism might be worth checking out, if you haven't already.

[drillkicker]

7 hours ago, brian trageskin said:

well, the sokal affair was part of the so-called "science wars", in which several proponents of scientific realism questioned the epistemology of postmodern thinkers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars - since you seem to be quite fond of deleuze and guattari, i thought this type of constructive criticism might be worth checking out, if you haven't already.

Sorry, I'm just not interested 

[zero]

[ooqpoo]

Saw a group of niqab wearers today out in the sun and I realised I've ever seen a niqab wearer wearing sunglasses? Burka wearers probably wouldn't need sunglasses, but what an awesome fashion accessory nonetheless, adding an extra layer of intrigue to an already mysterious look. 

[usagi]

Quebec French profanity is the lamest I have ever heard. gotta be ranked dead last in terms of punch. all the cusswords are centred on catholicism, so yelling nonsense words like "tabernacle!" and "chalice!" and "baptism!" are meant to convey strong feelings. wtf, where are your essential fucks and shits and dicks and cunts? look at Spanish-speaking peoples, they have like 10 different ways to refer their balls alone.

[ambermonk]

Japanese and Russian swear words are pretty satisfying in the right situation. I can probably name a few.

OT: Just discovered the concept of analysis paralysis, and realizing that it's become a major bad habit throughout my life. It's basically overthinking a decision, getting overwhelmed, and spinning one's wheels whilst getting nowhere. And there will likely be more situations down the road where it's not an option.
 

Spoiler

Expect another Dank Dump in the next day or two BTW

 

[Rubin Farr]

Clergy are wizards 

[brian trageskin]

just had a chat in the street with a 60-something lady, about tolkien and lotr, after she asked me the name of the ex's dog, which is bilbo. turned out she was a fan of tolkien, had even read the silmarillion (which i've only read the beginning of) and she had lived in england for 20 years. she was very happy with peter jackson's adaptation of lotr. coolest shit that's happened to me in quite some time lol.

Edited October 4, 2021 by brian trageskin

[T3551ER]

On 9/26/2021 at 2:17 PM, Cryptowen said:

i'll acknowledge at the outset that my perspective may well just be a product of my particular worldview (ie, as someone who's been irrationally wary of any sort of authority figure since early childhood, and tends to gravitate to emotionally intense experiences as if their intensity alone gave them authenticity), but...I basically view the psychiatric apparatus as largely being used to enforce social normativity. There's this idea of the "well-adjusted" individual who fits comfortably into the existing social structure, and with that comes the implication that any negative reaction to the existing structure is a defect to be treated. The individual is made to see his negative feelings in terms of his isolated experience, his personal history, his egoic desires etc. The content of the negative feeling is to be deconstructed, or expressed within the "safe" confines of mainstream discourse. The possibility of a large number of individuals recognizing that they share these negative feelings, and could in fact fight in the name of these feelings (rather than simply making vague allusion to them in socially-permitted conversation) is stymied.

I typically see people online responding to eccentric or angry outbursts with "seek help!"...the question is, seek help doing what? seek help becoming comfortable with a world that makes you uncomfortable? seek help learning to watch the news without gagging? seek help learning how to be "chill"? imo the implication in all this is that the primary purpose of life is to just be comfortable, to fit in, to accept the hand that's been dealt to you. for me this is not the purpose of life at all. for me the purpose of life is to work to uphold an ideal - be that ideal aesthetic, moral, political, social, etc. (i'm not saying it should be the same ideal for everyone). for me there's a sense of wanting to be true to an inner feeling - whether or not that means my life is comfortable, or accepted by others, or financially viable. in fact i'm pretty sure that most things i've accomplished that i'm actually proud of, most things that i look back on fondly many years later, were the product of tremendous inner tension & emotional malaise. Periods of my life where i've just been "chill" felt like a year, two years, five years going by as a blur, until i reached a point where i just got frustrated with the artificiality of it all

But! I also recognize that simply wanting to stare unblinking at the sickness of lfie isn't going to bring about massive social change (or even meaningful artistic output). i recognize that there's a certain kind of individual (myself) for whom these states hold quite an appeal. You're always going to have your dissidents, your would-be revolutionaries, your hermits, your malcontents etc who will naturally gravitate to these outlier positions, whether or not their efforts succeed in bringing about any kind of social or personal transformation. You're also going to have a certain kind of individual who really does just want to be normal, to fit in, to have a good time - and there's nothing shameful about that. I think for that kind of individual something like psychiatry probably makes a lot of sense (heck, maybe they even make better art when they feel more "stable" and not bogged down by their emotions). Then you also have a great number of individuals who are somewhere in the middle - they recognize that their might be some deeper truth to their discontent, but at the same time they recognize that there's something to be said for making an effort to fit in, and to get over yourself. For them, it's a process of determining to what degree they indulge their eccentricities, and to what degree they attempt to conform to an imperfect social machine. imo this is what most people are doing most of the time, and it's only on rare ocassions that things tip over, and a large number suddenly feel compelled to FIGHT DA POWAH

 

also i more or less agree with most of what Deleuze & Guattari have to say on the matter. Nick Land as well, but he's also a case study in how trying to rise up & strike the lightning can have some unintended ripple effects on a person's life

Just wanted to say that my personal experience with therapy, as well as friends who have been involved with it both as providers and receivers doesn't really mesh with the portrayal here? With the massive caveat that I feel like some of the complexities of the philosophical discussions in this thread are beyond me, I do feel like I understand the above and it just doesn't jive with what I've seen/experienced. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are a lot of psychotherapists that are trying to push people into a certain set of standards and boxes that could be labelled as normative but I've actually actually found the opposite is true - a lot of therapists I've talked to have even discussed society (well, at least our society) as being severely unhealthy and, in a lot of ways, the cause of a significant amount of our suffering. I distinctly remember one saying to me "it's hard to be immune from all of societies' signals" which I thought was fucking SPOT ON and holds true to this day. 

I don't know, just my experience, but I've absolutely never felt like any therapy that I've experienced ever pushed me towards "fitting in" and "being normal" and  "being stable" and "not bogged down by my emotions." 

That being said, my issues (and, of the people that I know who have done therapy) are generally of a trauma-related/PTSD nature - a few of my friends have legitimately had severe bipolar which I think is a bit different. ... but I also don't really know that their experience has been described as all that different. Most people that I know who provide therapy frankly don't really seem too keen on society or what constitutes the promulgated idea of "normalcy," and in fact often say things that most "normal" people would probably do a triple take at (e.g., hey, maybe taking drugs isn't actually a bad thing, depending on how and why you are doing it). 

My 2 cents, probably not even worth that much. Though, I guess this is the "pointless thoughts" thread so maybe I'm just uber OT .. 

EDIT: Wanted to correct something here. I was discussing this with my wife last night and she pointed out that bi-polar and schizophrenia are different diagnoses. She also let me know that several of her close friends (5 actually) were clinically diagnosed with schizophrenia, and their experience may mirror what you're talking about here to a degree - i.e., they felt that the medications and focus of their therapy was aimed at removing something that they felt was integral to their identity so they could "function better" in the world we live in. I.e., their schizophrenia felt like a huge part of who they are, and attempts to modify or change that felt like giving up a part of themselves for the sake of existing in a world they felt was not for them. 

I still hold the intent of therapy, in my experiences, is often not to enforce becoming dulled, chill, fit in or become "normal" and accept society without question (and would say the opposite is actually true). But I can understand why someone who deeply identifies with their condition and the way that causes them to function might feel like this is the case (I also get the argument that in another time/place, people with these disorders might be seen as holy prophets/shamans/visionaries instead of being shunted to the periphery of society, and there might be better societal ways of dealing with these issues than we are using now). 

Edited October 5, 2021 by T3551ER

[LimpyLoo]

On 10/4/2021 at 4:27 PM, T3551ER said:

Just wanted to say that my personal experience with therapy, as well as friends who have been involved with it both as providers and receivers doesn't really mesh with the portrayal here? With the massive caveat that I feel like some of the complexities of the philosophical discussions in this thread are beyond me, I do feel like I understand the above and it just doesn't jive with what I've seen/experienced. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are a lot of psychotherapists that are trying to push people into a certain set of standards and boxes that could be labelled as normative but I've actually actually found the opposite is true - a lot of therapists I've talked to have even discussed society (well, at least our society) as being severely unhealthy and, in a lot of ways, the cause of a significant amount of our suffering. I distinctly remember one saying to me "it's hard to be immune from all of societies' signals" which I thought was fucking SPOT ON and holds true to this day. 

I don't know, just my experience, but I've absolutely never felt like any therapy that I've experienced ever pushed me towards "fitting in" and "being normal" and  "being stable" and "not bogged down by my emotions." 

That being said, my issues (and, of the people that I know who have done therapy) are generally of a trauma-related/PTSD nature - a few of my friends have legitimately had severe bipolar which I think is a bit different. ... but I also don't really know that their experience has been described as all that different. Most people that I know who provide therapy frankly don't really seem too keen on society or what constitutes the promulgated idea of "normalcy," and in fact often say things that most "normal" people would probably do a triple take at (e.g., hey, maybe taking drugs isn't actually a bad thing, depending on how and why you are doing it). 

My 2 cents, probably not even worth that much. Though, I guess this is the "pointless thoughts" thread so maybe I'm just uber OT .. 

EDIT: Wanted to correct something here. I was discussing this with my wife last night and she pointed out that bi-polar and schizophrenia are different diagnoses. She also let me know that several of her close friends (5 actually) were clinically diagnosed with schizophrenia, and their experience may mirror what you're talking about here to a degree - i.e., they felt that the medications and focus of their therapy was aimed at removing something that they felt was integral to their identity so they could "function better" in the world we live in. I.e., their schizophrenia felt like a huge part of who they are, and attempts to modify or change that felt like giving up a part of themselves for the sake of existing in a world they felt was not for them. 

I still hold the intent of therapy, in my experiences, is often not to enforce becoming dulled, chill, fit in or become "normal" and accept society without question (and would say the opposite is actually true). But I can understand why someone who deeply identifies with their condition and the way that causes them to function might feel like this is the case (I also get the argument that in another time/place, people with these disorders might be seen as holy prophets/shamans/visionaries instead of being shunted to the periphery of society, and there might be better societal ways of dealing with these issues than we are using now). 

I really am of two minds re: psychiatry/psychotherapy, and I'm quite sympathetic to the Laing/Guattari view that, very often, psychiatry is merely enforcing behavioral norms, addressing societal problems by medicating individuals, etc, all while harboring very 'American' presuppositions about mental health/illness in a capitalist society...

However...

None of this precludes you from finding an actual, real-life psychotherapist that will help you fine-tune yourself, understand yourself in ways you couldn't do otherwise.

I've yet to hear any criticisms entailing actual people going to actual therapists. Anyone who thinks psychotherapy would either do them no good or do them harm, imho that person has been led astray by 'theory'.