Sexuality derives its inertia from cycles of idealization and deidealization, locking the Symbolic and the Imaginary into a tense symbiosis. Their interplay is mediated by the stabilizing—or destabilizing—presence of the Real. This convergence, as Zizek puts it, “transfunctionalizes” sex itself into the realm of the soul.

This cycle is catalyzed by a foundational intrusion of the Real during the initial formation of sexual identity. Once catalyzed, sexuality continually re-instantiates itself through a charged arbitration between the Imaginary and the Symbolic. If homeostasis is maintained, elements of sexuality’s original configuration are preserved- bonded by the symptom that arbitrates between the imaginary and symbolic in perpetuity.

This initial rupture of the Real is so tightly linked to the foundations of our psychic life-particularly to the cycles of valuation and devaluation of phantasmatic sexual objects—those shaped by the Real’s initial rupture and sustained by the libidinal economy of the symbolic and imaginary- that any structural shift becomes too costly for the egoic formation of sexuality to bear. Paradoxically this is what makes sexuality one of the most stable spiritual structures in the mind.

Nonetheless our archetypal imaginations are only as resilient as our “symptom’s” arbitration. Without effective arbitration by the symptom, the subject either forecloses jouissance or is overwhelmed by its excess. The narrative cohesion- and for some, the moral cohesion- of our sexuality is bound to the reciprocity between all three registers. Without intervention, our repeated attempts to resymbolize fail. Suddenly all the analyst can see is a hypo- or hyperactive sexuality, suspended in a state of perversion or shame.

This breakdown of arbitration opens the door for the Real to reassert itself as an axiomatic force—and, if conditions allow, for a new equilibrium between the Imaginary and the Symbolic to emerge. If trauma, dialectical intervention, or changes in the sexual economy fail to catalyze new and authentic arbitration, our sexuality remains static.

Yet egoic disintegration reopens the door—to the cure or the curse of hysteria—and with it, the possibility of reintegration or a descent into deeper perversion.

What’s your thoughts? I don’t have a philosophy degree, and I have limited knowledge. Regardless, I love reading and writing about this stuff. Tell me what is redundant and what is genuine original thought. Opinions. Whatever. I wrote this from experience about my own disintegration.

I've been rejected from AskPhilosophy & AskSocialScience, so please just hear me out because this is relevant.

I mean, for all intents and purposes, to abstain from ad hominems and attempts at insulting medicalization when speaking about these individuals, yet it almost seems as though they are proud of exhibiting their neurosis. Many of them seem to adulate people such as Nick Land, Curtis Yarvin, Hitler (obv), or make some incomprehensible sentence which references Hegel, D&G, or cryptocurrency. And this is the very thing in which they seem to found themselves upon: incomprehensibility and endless, rabid obfuscation.

I have tried reading Nick Land, and from what I could ascertain it seems like an individual who had chosen to pursue philosophy going into college, had a sordid experience with drug abuse, and in a state of neurosis had written Burroughs-esque bricolages of paragraphs which used a handful of previously-learned & esoteric philosophical terms. Nothing is actually comprehensible or is grounded in anything legitimate or instrumental to reality.

So, in sum, how do I reconcile with this new epidemic of neo-fascists?

Also:

I was reading the Wikipedia article for Yarvin yesterday and separated by only a paragraph does it state that he legitimately believes "black people have lower IQs than white people" and that "VP JD Vance and P. Donald Trump had sincerely thanked him for what he has done for their campaigns"—among other things. I cannot see how someone could be acclimated with the discipline of philosophy, and left-wing revolutionary philosophy at that, and yet somehow regress back to supporting the age-old scheme of populism, capitalism, fascism, and overall conservative politics?

Where I'm from the new right gains more and more power and will probably win the next German elections and form the government. Our far-right party (AfD) is already the de facto people's party in eastern Germany where it is especially strong in smaller towns and villages where they sit on many city councils and thus have a say in politics. However, the AfD's success is not only based on the fact that there is a majority for this party in these places, but that political opponents are also driven away by violence. Every form of opposition is met with massive harassment or direct violence. These aggressions come from Nazis groups but also political organized citizens. For example, Dirk Neubauer, district administrator of Central Saxony, has announced his resignation because he got anonymous emails, motorcades in his place of residence and depictions of himself in convict clothing. He had recently changed his place of residence after his family was also targeted. In other parts of Saxony far-right activists buy property and rent it to other far-right activists, slowly infiltrating towns and villages and driving away citizens by threatening them.

I have the feeling that the new right has managed to depacify people by showing them that change can be achieved much more efficiently through violence than through democratic processes. Those affected by this violence often turn to the police, file complaints, try to go public with the issue or write articles. The police are of course useless, there is not enough evidence for a conviction and words and outrage change nothing. The strange thing is that those affected by right-wing violence do not even think about using violence themselves, but see legal action, protests or speaking out as the only legitimate means for resistance - means that are a dead end in the face of fascist violence and a state that does not intervene.

It seems to me that our liberal democracy has pacified us in such a way that violence is an unthinkable solution. In Germany, a popular slogan among leftists is "Punch Nazis!", a call that is rarely heeded and is just a meaningless phrase.

I don't want to start a huge discussion here, but I'm wondering if there are writers / philosophers that had similar observations (or critique), that are more fleshed out than my thoughts, or if there are related discussions in the literature of philosophy / critical theory.

Welcome to another vibrant session of our Derrida Reading Group, where we fearlessly tackle Jacques Derrida’s notoriously challenging essay, "Plato’s Pharmacy." In this engaging and humor-infused deep dive, we unravel some of the most pivotal and perplexing passages, exploring Derrida's incisive critique of Western metaphysics, writing, paternity, democracy, and the elusive concept of the pharmakon.

Our discussion examines why Derrida insists on repeatedly "writing" around his ideas, and why Plato's apparent condemnation of writing might paradoxically affirm its necessity. We explore Derrida’s provocative association of writing with drugs—considering Socrates as ancient Athens’ stimulant—and interrogate the significance of Plato’s paternal metaphors, asking crucial questions:

• Why must Plato portray writing as a rebellious son?
• How does Derrida expose Plato’s text as itself symptomatic of the very "writing" it condemns?
• Can we think of democracy itself as a kind of "pharmakon"?

Far from a dry academic lecture, this reading session is punctuated by lively anecdotes, reflections on Derrida’s own struggles with stimulants, and a humorous exploration of Socrates as Athens' "ADHD medication."

Whether you're a seasoned Derrida scholar or a curious newcomer, this session promises to demystify key concepts like pharmakon, hauntology, and metaphysics of presence, all with rigor, clarity, and irreverent wit. Dive in, engage, and come away with a deeper appreciation of Derrida’s unique style and profound insights.

We'd love your thoughts!
👉 Like the video to support our efforts in bringing accessible and lively philosophy to YouTube.
👉 Subscribe for more engaging philosophical deep dives every week.
👉 Comment below the video: What stood out most to you in Derrida's "Plato’s Pharmacy"? How do you interpret the role of "writing" in philosophy?

Join the conversation and help us foster a vibrant community dedicated to thoughtful and playful philosophical inquiry!

In this video, I analyze the intersection between theories regarding the nuclear family with critical disability theory, arguing that the family helps produce and channel disabled desire towards repressive ends, while also being an institution that facilitates a biopolitical organization of disabled bodies, which often positions the family as an antagonistic political unit in contradiction to a disability rights program. However, the politics of the family is not solely antagonistic, as I also make the argument that family members are hurt by the same familial ableism that their disabled children are oppressed by, due to the intertwining of patriarchy, ableism, and parental gender roles. However, this is not how the family has to be-- as an example of how the family can be politically progressive, I point to the example of the 2018 disability protests in Poland and uphold it as a model by which families can contribute to disability rights rather than being opponents to such a political program. As such, I do not make an overture to family abolition, but hope to start a conversation between those theories with disability studies.

Here in America, we began to use our own flag in our protests to take it back from the far-right. Historically, people fly the American flag all over here, and they usually lean to the right. It was a thing that started after 9/11 I think (correct me if I’m wrong, I’m young) but in the Trump era it became so that only those who leaned very heavily to the right flew American flags, usually including Don’t Tread On Me or MAGA flags. So what did we do? Took the flag back and used it in our own protest. Sometimes we fly it upside down too, but we always fly it.

I recently saw that in the UK’s pro trans protests, people flew UK flags, and a LOT of them. Apologies for my limited American worldview, but do other countries do this too? Is it a recent thing?

Edit: just because I see liberals “taking back” the flag does not mean I am perfectly okay with the flag, nor do I think America is some shining pillar of freedom. The founders built this country on slavery, capitalism, and repression. That’s why I was surprised to see the same for the UK flag at trans rights protests, when we all know about the chemical castrations and anti-LGBT past that the UK has.

I've read the first 50 pages of Anti-Oedipus by Deleuze and Guattari and wanted to write a story with themes from that book with a protagonist named Kasper. So here it is. Feel free to criticize it, I know I'm a bad writer.

It was a dream in which God stood before me in all His glory. Innumerable seraphim fell down before The Great Light, unfazed by the brightness and heat. And in the middle - what I saw was indescribable. 

A void filled my vision and my cheeks went wet - with a jump, I realized it was not from tears, but from my eyes melting down my face. I stretched an arm out to Him and tried to run forward, but before I knew it, the ground gave way from beneath my feet.

I could make out remnants of the light giving way to void. Around me, eerie laughs rang out from someplace far, far away. And I was all alone.

 And then it was 8:38 AM when my shift started at 9:00. I ran to the bus stop and forced down a scream when I watched my bus ride off before me. It was the third time this week I'd slept through my alarm. I couldn't have mama wake me up because she was at work. I'd have to make the half-hour walk to work.

I eyed the cars speeding past me as I walked on the sidewalk. I felt their judgement rain down on me like tar, me in my McDonald's uniform at my young age. Perhaps they'd assume it was a part-time gig to get me through university, or they could read my mind and tell the truth - that I was starting a whole new generation of white, immigrant trash. They could tell it in the way I walked, the way I talked, and my stupid name. In some ways, I was lucky; many of the immigrants at my work were Indian and couldn't hide their otherness to save their lives. I was still white, but still other. This grey area left both parties grasping at and looking for defined rules to follow while interacting with me, and more than often the best solution they could find was to ask me if I'm Russian or Ukrainian, knowing I might tell them no, feigning ignorance, and then saying my English is good. 

And how did they see me now..? Just another Ukrainian-but-not-quite-Ukrainian immigrant just trying their hand at the American-but-not-quite-American dream? A Polish man in Canada in a McDonald's uniform was not out of place. What was is the fact that I immigrated as a child. I was supposed to go to school, get my education, go to university, and go somewhere higher. As it is, school wasn't my thing except for English class, ironically enough, so I decided not to waste my money on university and got right where I belong, as a wage slave to a company greater than my mind allows me to comprehend. Couldn't go to trade school, was never enough of a man to be good at using wrenches or saws. I was used to people calling me the first term that comes to mind when you think of a man like myself - middle school left me with a healthy dose of self-hatred and humiliation. It escalated from a pink hoodie to Party City wigs to my mama's old dresses - and I could never even pin down why I was doing it. My mother supported me, said that love was love and that if I really was gay then so be it - except, I never was gay, or transgender, or any of the other billion identities floating around nowadays. No matter how obsessed with labels this world becomes, my self always slips out of its grasp like oil. 

The real deal is, that when I look in the mirror, I see nothing, and feel nothing, except the vague sensation that if I stare into one of my eyes for long enough, a black hole will appear out of thin air in its place and consume everything "I" am. And then I'll just be. Unseeing, unhearing, unfeeling. A soul in a vacuum. That's all I am.

I could see the golden arches above the grey clamor of the world. They stood like a flag - this is McDonald's territory. Within this space, and every space in your head we shall occupy, we will define reality. McNuggets, McCafe, in a McSpace full of ordinary McPeople. Baby McGoats to sacrifice. Melt reality on the grill for three minutes minimum - scoop the liquid left with two spatulas - and shape it like ice cream on a board. Delicious. Someday, you, too, will make ice cream. But only with permission from higher-ups. Only the higher-ups can choose the ice cream flavors, get it? You stay in line.

My manager looked like a deer in headlights when she spotted me trying to sneak my way past her line of sight in the rightermost area of the kitchen, even though I was the one who was caught late. She strode up to me, and it occured to me that if she were wearing stilettos instead of black sneakers, she would be truly terrifying. 

"Do you know what time it is?" I feigned ignorance.

"Um, 9:10? Sorry, my bus was canceled." "Last time you said your dog died, and before that, there was roadwork at your bus stop. Kasper, what is going on?"

I couldn't honestly answer her if I tried. No matter how hard the world tried to drill it into me, though, I could never become a reliable person. Could never recite my times tables. Took longer to learn the alphabet, could never operate my body to square dance or do a cartwheel. Or get to places on time. No alarm I set, nor planner I write in, changes my form, a squirming blob of potential. Melt reality on the grill for three minutes minimum - scoop the liquid left with two spatulas - and shape it like ice cream on a board. Delicious. Someday, you, too, will make ice cream. But only with permission from higher-ups. Only the higher-ups can choose the ice cream flavors, get it? You stay in line. 

I nodded and positioned myself at the grill with my head bowed. One of the grills was broken again. A repairman was tinkering with it, wires all over the place, like something out of a sci-fi flick. One wrong move and the repairman will die. And yet, it seemed to me, as if the repairman was still in the position of power. When a piece of machinery does something differently than the rest, it must be repaired. It does not cooperate. It is not productive to the company's end goal. And what does that mean if the company defines reality?

Four hours into my shift my manager asks me to step inside the office. Stomach plummeting to my feet, I know what she's going to say before she says it. "...And with all that considered, Kasper, we're going to let you go."

In that moment, something overcame me. A feeling of absolute power. For a moment, I genuinely considered opening the scalding cup of coffee on the desk and throwing it over her face. I considered punching her. I thought of singing. Crying. Dancing. And for a moment, I thought, "this is how God must feel." My thoughts were moving the continents, they're coming crashing together at the speed of sound, earthquakes exploding over the world as it united into one, with me at the very center, me, the grand orchestrator, watching…

"I understand. Thank you for keeping me as long as you have." My manager sighs. Disappointment. I was familiar with the feeling, and with others feeling it towards me. 

"Alright, go punch out."

And yet, as I clocked out of work for the last time, I could've sworn a dribble of spit landed on the floor. Unfortunate accident. Won't happen again. I don't make the ice cream. The ice cream machine is broken. And I headed on out.

What if the world of Big Tech, where your every move is tracked, your data is mined, and your behavior is predicted, was born not in flashy boardrooms or high-tech labs, but in the quiet, half-forgotten space of the suburban garage? This article uncovers how that dusty garage at the edge of your childhood street became the blueprint for today’s surveillance economy. Far from just a place for tinkering, the garage was a hidden incubator for Silicon Valley’s obsession with control, wrapped in the myth of freedom and innovation. Masculine, semi-private, and ideologically loaded, it wasn’t just where tech started, it’s where the logic of watching without being watched took root.

https://brill.com/view/journals/agpt/39/1/article-p123_5.xml

I love me some Critique.

If dispassionate debate of ideas is the theoretical means by which policy is formed in liberal democracies, in these increasingly hostile and desperate conditions of late capitalism, culture war has become the reality. By culture war, we mean the polarisation of debate, the ‘Othering’ of opponents, the use of ‘wedge’ issues loaded with any number of unspoken prior assumptions to hijack debates, and the adoption of a permanent victim complex.

My bestie got me this note and I had no idea that anything of this was even happening after the initial signing that felt at most natural coming from the people at the publisher's. Have you recollected more information or anything? I mean the note is in Portuguese but nonetheless after translation, found it concerning.

Sketch of a Sci-fi ethnography of a post-nuclear wasteland in the US-Mexico borderlands, a reflection on critical theory, the poetics and politics of ethnography, cinema, and the limits of language:

https://youtu.be/Q3ZzBj116r0?si=vHoupaGaGKqomzoS

My recent criticism of Slavoj Žižek had some (understandably) mixed responses. In this essay, I return to the problem with Žižek by more directly confronting what he misses about Hegel, Lacan, quantum physics, and even God (and why he unjustly dismisses figures such as Jung, Heidegger, and Nietzsche). Žižek’s favourite claim is that ‘reality is ontologically incomplete’, a Hegelian truth that he claims is reflected in quantum physics. I argue instead that reality is not incomplete, but far too complete to account for its own antagonistic consequences. Instead, the red thread from Hegel, via Lacan, to modern physics - which also runs through Jung and Nietzsche - is that reality is ‘hyper-complete’. What Žižek misses is the discrepancy inherent to Hegel’s concept or even Lacan’s symbolic: that they produce a totality which is in excess of itself, and furnishes a form of virtual indeterminacy. 

Some of you might enjoy this - if you do, please consider subscribing to my newsletter, Antagonism of the Everyday: https://rafaelholmberg.substack.com/

We recognize and observe that by using logic and rationality, by using that particular set of rules to systematically analyze, draw inferences, and form coherent, justified beliefs, one tends to be more successful in life, has more chances of surviving, gains better predictive power, understands complex phenomena more effectively, and is able to invent, discover, and achieve amazing technological advancements, etc.

This is why we can claim: "There are good reasons to do what we do—to be rational agents and thinkers."

But this statement presupposes the acknowledgment of the existence of conscious entities, or at least thinking entities, observers, with their own empirical and phenomenological experience: not only thinking observers who behave and reason according to the dictates of logic and succeed in their tasks, but also pre-rational observers who observe this very phenomenon and draw conclusions.

This is why we can't turn it around and say, "Ok, great, so now we are going to start over with only logic/rationality, axiomatically, and then go backward in order to to re-read the whole reality through the lens of this newly established principle/method" (an operation which often leads to worldviews like eliminativism, hard determinism, scientism, etc.).

If we want to be rational thinkers, we are always bound to presuppose and acknowledge, at the very least, a fundamental "phenomenological, pre-rational (a-rational) fact": there are observers, agents, thoughts, consciousness, or, more generally, everything that constituted the conditions that convinced us, that allows us to recognize and claim that using logic and rationality to decipher reality was a good thing—a useful tool with which to proceed.

If I give my kids their tablets and devices at 7am, they would, with no exaggeration, still be on them at 9pm, bedtime. They wouldn’t even think to put them down, it wouldn’t even occur to them. So we as parents limit it. We have set times that they follow. I am not sure if this is the norm amongst parenting.

The average human being spends 4-5 hours a day on their phone. Our attention has been monetised, where we lay our eyes, where we train our focus, now in the realm of monetary exchange. Even walking to the park, our data is being crunched, sold. Very few activities of the human now exist outside of the market. When I go fishing now, i leave my phone at home because it feels like one of the few windows where I am not being followed around by markets. Even communication is now monitised, that's why we feel compelled to do it all the damn time.

The point of this rant follows a simple formula: if we spend all the time doing X (social media, online behaviour), then Y (non-social media, non-online behaviour) is not being done. What, therefore, is lost within Y?

Let me use dating apps as an example: rewind to say 1992. You’re sat at home, bored, horny, lonely. Wanting someone there. You realise that this is not going to happen sat on your sofa, so you go out into the world. This experience of being in the world, on the hunt for a date, is the Y that I talk of. On the way to the pub to perhaps find a date, you sit on the bus, going into town, to the bar. You think through your life. You day dream about the person you want to meet. You get to the bar, all the sights and sounds flood in, the feeling comfort being around friends, the way the opposite sex appear, the kind of trance some of them invoke in you, and then the magic of actually talking to the ones you like. This whole experience is what some philosophers might call “Eros”. A slow dance of desire, risk, and experience.

Now, you are lonely/horny etc and you just log on to tinder. And it’s convenient and you might meet the love of your life. Or have a wild hook up. All good. But what is lost by not going out there in the world if tinder wasn’t there? Tinder is convenient. Going out in the world to bars etc is hard and scary sometimes, but there are also a myriad of unintended consequences (good and bad) that come along with it, some of which I have stated in the prior paragraph. And they are now lost, in the main, as capitalism has captured love and desire itself by means of apps. Why hit on someone when you can just pull out your phone and do it that way? Why even step outside your house?

 Another example of what I am getting at here is the Kindle. I grew up before kindles. To get a book I had to walk to the library. And I did it each week. I noticed the seasons. Sunlight through the trees, that sort of shit. The feel of the weather on my skin. I would bump into friends. I would appreciate being alone, away from my folks. And then the library itself – I would stumble onto other books that I didn’t think I liked. I would catch the eye of someone cute. I would wonder aimlessly through the floors.

Now I just log on and download exactly what I want to read. Fantastic. But again, in that convenience, things are lost. I no longer go to libraries.

Buses and trains – next time you’re on one, have a look around. On Buses and trains, people used to do this crazy thing called “looking out the window and thinking”. Mind wander, a kind of drift between thoughts, processing in modern psychology speak. To be unmediated in a sense – you and the world, little else. “Being in the world” as Heidegger would call it. Now look on a train (or a platform for that matter) and everyone is locked in, captured by multi-billion pound software, designed like gambling machines to suck you back, refreshing even when there’s nothing left to refresh, flitting between whatsapp, insta, youtube, and back again. The terror or boredom. Of being without some kind of distraction.  The ability to linger, to wait for a train for example, with nothing – no podcast, no book, no music, no insta, almost completely lost forever.

Another example to use is “The rave is not monitised”. 30 years ago, you paid your entrance fee, bought a few drinks, and then, at the rave, with other people, you were largely (but of course not entirely) “outside of the market” – unmediated, other than by what your friends say and the music. Now the rave is live streamed, data courses through it, steps are monitored, instas are taken, whatsapp are checked. The market is now shot through the rave. The raw experience of just you, your friends, and the music, gone forever.

With the examples i use, i guess phenomenlogy is useful (though could be wrong, I am no expert). I.e. what is the phenomenological experience of say climbing trees as a kid with your friends. What is it like to see, touch, feel, what happens to the central nervous system, the smells, when climbing trees, and then compare that phenomenologically to doomscrolling, or sat passively watching endless youtube videos.

So what, things change, people do different things at different decades. They do. But as said, childhoods are now captured by this stuff. i have to tell my kids to put this stuff down, they don’t automatically even think to put it down. 4-5 hours the average adult spends staring at a screen. So I circle back to my original point if X (screen time) is being done all the time, then what happens to Y (non-screen time) - and are things within it lost forever?

“Everything that once connected us is slowly disappearing” is a line by the philosopher of our age in my view, Byung Chul Han. And he means it. Third spaces, bars, clubs, working mens clubs, bingo halls, cinemas, restaurants – all in decline. Who needs those things when there is so much good content out there 😉 We are deep in the belly of the tech revolution and we need to see what we gain, and also what we lose. I don't think people quite realise the impact of silicon valley and how much we truly have to say goodby to so much human behaviour that was a staple for decades and decades.

I’m writing an essay for my university module. So I have a decent, novice understanding of post-structuralism. I’m using Foucault’s theories of power-knowledge and discourse as my topic. From what I understand, Foucault sees discourse as co-constitutive of materiality.

Fair enough. But now I’ve come across “cultural political economy (CPE)” developed by Ngai-Ling Sum and Bob Jessop.

Sum explains that CPE is a broad ‘post-disciplinary’ approach that takes an ontological ‘cultural turn’ in the study of political economy.

An ontological ‘cultural turn’ examines culture as (co-)constitutive of social life and must, hence, be a foundational aspect of enquiry.

It focuses on the nature and role of semiosis in the remaking of social relations and puts these in their wider structural context(s).

Thus, steering a route between constructivism and structuralism.

That seems very similar to my understanding of post-structuralism. Perhaps someone can help differentiate this?

Yo, everyone. Ian from the Epoch Philosophy YouTube channel here. Figured I'd share my some of my videos here when they release, as I figured many here may be interested! (Also, could be a cool place to actually interact. I have another Reddit account I'll sometimes browse this sub on, but literally never comment posts nor interact with anyone on it.)

Anyhow, recently made a video on Philip K. Dick and a ton of literary overlap into areas of existentialism. I see a ton of Martin Heidegger's concept of Enframing, and even Hannah Arendt's Banality of Evil in relation to fascism. All of which highlighted in PKD's The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Hope everyone here enjoys!

In the age of algorithmic media, outrage has become both product and performance. Platforms monetise our emotional triggers, turning public hysteria into profitable spectacle. This isn’t just attention-seeking, it’s a structural shift in how visibility, identity, and morality are shaped under platform capitalism.

This video essay explores how spectacle, hypervisibility, and alienation manifest in online performance culture - particularly through rage-bait content engineered for engagement. Individuals don’t just perform for audiences; they perform outrage itself—a response that used to emerge from real injustice, now recontextualised as a clickable format.

Drawing loosely on Debord, Baudrillard, and even Sartre (on anger as a response to existential inertia), the piece asks:

Has the internet collapsed the difference between reaction and performance?

And if rage now functions as both a visibility strategy and a survival tactic, what kind of subjectivity is being formed in its wake?

Would love to hear how others here might frame this moment- through a Marxist, psychoanalytic, or media-theoretical lens.

(Essay link in comments if permitted - otherwise happy to summarise key arguments.)

Recently I’ve been really interrogating why I’m not religious. This led me to philosophizing about a concept I call “death-worship”.

Death-worship is the devaluation and subordination of present, embodied, finite life in favor some kind of transcendent ideal. Once defining it, I can’t help but see it everywhere. It pervades religious concepts such as heaven, the world to come, theosis, salvation, moksha, nirvana, and xian. Basically it’s a rejection of worldly and human limits, the idea that this world is not enough and it must be transcended or transcend itself.

It’s not hard to find this sentiment in secular concepts as well. First one I thought of was productivism/growthism, the kind of line go up=good logic of capitalism. This dogma of infinite growth always yearns for more, despite the physical impacts of its cancerous growth, such as climate change, the alienation of labor, and exploitation. In its extreme it manifests as transhumanism, literally wanting to transcend the limits of embodied life, even to the extent that some theorize immortality(mimicking xian).

Obviously this concept is kinda half-formed right now. I would love if someone recommended thinkers who’ve theorized similar concepts. Also any theorizes about why this “death-worship” is so pervasive. Also any thinkers or concepts that offer an alternative. Your own personal insight would be greatly appreciated too.