william kent
Well-known member
People do come alive in a crisis though which is why I think the Brexit lot are so fixated on WW2, the spirit of the Blitz and all that. It offers a very definite purpose.
We Are All Willing On The Catastrophe
- Thread starter luka
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- attack of the climate virgin barty i hope you die you bastard blood for the blood god coping mechanism desecrating the pink temple disappointed dissensus death cult doomers gonna doom droid malfunction droid vs roids fuck off and cry over your candles hard reset irish troubles it's all coming down j.g. well 'ard jesus christ corpsey kevinoak nuke the whale ohmyfuckinggodnotthisshitagain revolutionary suicide riot season she who spits out precious stones stormchasing terminal orgasm
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
It's very telling that what remains of the generation that actually lived through WWII is generally anti-Brexit, while it's their kids, the boomers now in their 60s and 70s, who are most keen on it. I think it's because these people, especially men, who grew up in the shadow of WWII but didn't directly experience it, feel cheated. Their dads had a war, as did their dads' dads - where was their war? Well now they've got one. Blitz spirit. British grit. Two fingers up at the Hun, the Bosch, the Krauts (and their cheese-eating collaborators).
Funny how Churchill is a totemic figure for this lot, a fetish, virtually a patron saint - and he thought a United States of Europe would be a good thing!
I thought it might be worth just questioning some of the basic assumptions re. Freud. The Freudian lingua franca is part of our background thinking to such an extent that we don't notice it anymore. The death drive gets this free pass but I think it's worth questioning the idea. Do we actually think this is a real thing? Freudian ideas like this don't really have a lot of traction in modern therapy practice and there's certainly no backing for this idea in neurobiology. It strikes me as one of those ideas that passes from book to book, or writer to writer, with no intervening thought. 'Cos it's a convenient shorthand for other more complex processes, fits our moral compasses or whatever.
I may come across as someone who believes ever word Wilhelm Reich ever wrote (not true btw) but his critique of the idea of the death drive (in Function of the Orgasm IIRC). He says what people see as a death drive is really a desire for the relief of unbearable biological tension - the fantasy of relief and the ultimate release. He also accuses Freud of sneaking Christian metaphysics back into psychoanalysis via this concept - good vs evil. If you ever talk to a committed Freudian about this (yes, they still exist) it's remarkable how slippery it is as a concept. It can be read as everything which to me suggests perhaps it means nothing.
I may come across as someone who believes ever word Wilhelm Reich ever wrote (not true btw) but his critique of the idea of the death drive (in Function of the Orgasm IIRC). He says what people see as a death drive is really a desire for the relief of unbearable biological tension - the fantasy of relief and the ultimate release. He also accuses Freud of sneaking Christian metaphysics back into psychoanalysis via this concept - good vs evil. If you ever talk to a committed Freudian about this (yes, they still exist) it's remarkable how slippery it is as a concept. It can be read as everything which to me suggests perhaps it means nothing.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
My mum is a very anxious person (as am I, only slightly less so) and I sometimes think she's happiest when there IS a crisis. It's as if the situation she's been preparing herself for in the most stable circumstances is here and now she's attuned to it.
In a book I read recently about personality psychology, the author opined that neurotics are suited to situations in which anxiety is helpful. In situations in which anxiety has no immediate, obvious applications, the anxiety is still there, useless, self-generating.
This is a sidenote.
In a book I read recently about personality psychology, the author opined that neurotics are suited to situations in which anxiety is helpful. In situations in which anxiety has no immediate, obvious applications, the anxiety is still there, useless, self-generating.
This is a sidenote.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
John Gray on Ballard:
By surrendering to a change in themselves that has been set in motion by a shift in the world, the protagonists of Ballard’s stories find a new kind of self-realisation.
Ballard’s work is composed of fictions of fulfilment. The collapse of order he describes is only the backdrop for his true subject matter, which is a process of inner transformation. Of course, he never imagined that the impact on most people of extreme situations could in practice be anything other than traumatic. For a teenage boy, he used to say, a spell in an internment camp could be an exciting adventure but the experience damaged his parents permanently. What he witnessed himself after order broke down in the camp undoubtedly left scars that never fully healed.
As the editors of this book [Extreme Metaphors] imply, Ballard’s stories are metaphors, not literal renditions of events – actual or realistically possible. The portrayals of personal liberation through immersion in catastrophe that fill his writings are like the landscapes of the surrealists he loved so much: creations of the imagination that expand our sense of possibility and affirm the renewal of life.
By surrendering to a change in themselves that has been set in motion by a shift in the world, the protagonists of Ballard’s stories find a new kind of self-realisation.
Ballard’s work is composed of fictions of fulfilment. The collapse of order he describes is only the backdrop for his true subject matter, which is a process of inner transformation. Of course, he never imagined that the impact on most people of extreme situations could in practice be anything other than traumatic. For a teenage boy, he used to say, a spell in an internment camp could be an exciting adventure but the experience damaged his parents permanently. What he witnessed himself after order broke down in the camp undoubtedly left scars that never fully healed.
As the editors of this book [Extreme Metaphors] imply, Ballard’s stories are metaphors, not literal renditions of events – actual or realistically possible. The portrayals of personal liberation through immersion in catastrophe that fill his writings are like the landscapes of the surrealists he loved so much: creations of the imagination that expand our sense of possibility and affirm the renewal of life.
luka
Well-known member
If you refuse to read the thread before commenting we are condemned to going round in circles.
droid
Well-known member
Its not an argument, but as you know, we are not wholly rational beings, and the psychological result of these positions is hopelessness, despair and apathy - the doomer mentality.
There's a ton of research and literature on the subject which can be accessed quite easily by anyone who can be arsed.
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I am privately convinced that the ruling classes are at this point basically trying to bait us into guillotining them en masse. They can't believe we haven't done it already. Every new day that dawns is a miracle to them. Another day of getting to be, to get away with being, Trump, Johnson, Bolsonaro. And nobody stops you. Nobody bludgeons you into dripping insensible meat and hangs you from a lamp-post in the public square. Only their incredulity explains their deepening nihilism.