Inspired or curious about something The Fundamentalists chatted about on the podcast? Browse these carefully curated show notes to reference and recap where you heard a particular mention, concept, or other thought. Did I miss something? Please let me know and and share your thoughts or suggestions!
Please note: These show notes were a personal passion project. As an avid listener of the show, I created these for a select number of episodes.
January 5, 2020
MENTIONS:
26.00 - West World
28.58 - “incels” - The term "involuntary celibate" (shortened to "incel") refers to self-identifying members of an online subculture based around the inability to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, a state they describe as "inceldom" or "incelibacy". (source)
51.32 - ATM - “hole in the wall” - term they use in Ireland
52.21 - Oatmeal - comic strip - reference (2 birds talking -George Washington - wooden teeth)
59.40 - Charcuterie - “cheese on wood”
QUIPS and QUOTES:
3.35 - “Dry January,” being generally healthier, doing more on YouTube (Elliott’s resolution)
4.00 - Talking about guilt and WWIII
4.55 - Lacan: Seminar 7 of his lectures - “The only guilt you feel is giving ground relative to your desire.”
7.13 - What is guilt? Analogy: pulled over by police, neurotic people feel guilty/anxiety (and they did nothing wrong), why do they feel guilty when they did everything right?
7.52 - Elliott’s experience: felt no guilt when he rolled thru a stop sign
11.25 - Peter’s experience: felt no guilt for doing the wrong thing - opposite of neurotic
12.00 - A dog could feel guilty not if it felt bad because it pissed in the house, but if it didn’t piss in the house, and then felt guilty, that would be human guilt.
12.22 - Guilt is giving into one’s desire, which basically sounds like guilt is when you do what you want to do when it’s different from what society tell you to do.
12.31 - It’s the difference between what’s called “demand and desire” - the demand of the big other (society, parents, etc.) Desire is not necessarily your desire. Desire is…
Demand: Mom says, “Don’t get into fights.”
Desire: Mom feels you should fight back
Demand: don’t speed, I obey.
Desire: super-ego, I feel guilty because I did give ground to my desire, desire to speed.
When you break the demand, do what you desire, you don’t feel guilty. You didn’t give ground to your desire.
15.52 - Desire could be anything (not just a police chase) symbol of authority, “the Big Other” desire to rebel against that symbol.
17.45 - Complicated because the demand and the desire are both in you and the symbolic other.
18.35 - Pete’s hypothesis - cop would have felt guilty giving you a ticket because we would have obeyed the demand but not his desire.
20.10 - Stalinist system: if you showed guilt, your guilt shows that unconsciously you did want to rebel. You’re guilty because of your guilt.
20.57 - Show no guilt = easy for psychotics, difficult for neurotics.
21.52 - Lacan - desire is slightly self-destructive, dark impulses, death drive (Lacanian desire)
23.00 - Don’t compromise your desire because if you do, you’ll end up doing something terrible.
23.33 - Lacan - Your desire is structured in a certain way, don’t compromise that or something terrible will happen, but it doesn’t mean you have to act it out.
23.52 - 3 ways you can desire in terms of sex
There has to be an obstacle you overcome. The obstacles generate the desire
Perverse Structure - you directly desire the obstacle
Psychotic Structure - someone embraces their desire/pleasure without any struggles/obstacles
26.00 - West World - brothel with no progressive transgression; neurotic fantasy
26.33 - Whichever structure you are, don’t compromise it.
26.38 - Hogwarts Houses (Elliott)
- No inhibitions - Gryffindor
- Perverse BDSM- Slytherin
- Requires obstacle - Ravenclaw
- Celibate - Hufflepuff
27.19 - Ultimate pleasure in not having sex, mystics/monks/nuns have a sexual experience with God
28.12 - Fascist Structure: militia, their desire is directly in the sacrifice of the desire, i.e. Nazis
28.58 - “incels” - involuntarily celibate
Incel A = “I just want to have sex, and I can’t,” no pleasure.
Incel B = Taking pleasure in not having sex, pleasure in resentment, angry/self-victimized
32.55 - Incel B vs. someone who enjoys fetish sex, not genital sex, enjoy the prohibition, the impossibility; get enjoyment out of their own hate
34.57 - Communists took to words and reduced them to the first few letters, (i.e. “incels”)
35.39 - WWIII is coming up (Iran, Iraq, US)
36.32 - Thought experiment - look at public figures who die in some way but you can only rank them in age to when you found out who they were, i.e. Michael Jackson (knew all my life) vs. Iranian leader, his existence was “born” the day he died.
37.37 - Social media, WWIII is trending
38.10 - Meme account, comedians, making jokes - coping mechanism or reverence to nihilism - don’t give a crap vs. hyper-paranoid vs. I-don’t-know.
39.50 - Michael Jackson - had a desire structure of not getting what he wanted and that’s why there were so few accusations against him.
41.00 - Peter at a party, met a guy terrified of death. “What if you’re not terrified of death, but you’re fascinated by death, and you want to die?”
43.13 - Kierkegaard - a fear to jump is actually a desire to jump - “It’s not the fear of heights. It’s the desire to jump.” Catch yourself in your desire and you have to pull back.
44.40 - How many people, without even knowing it, are secretly hoping for the end of the world.
47.00 - Lacan - Desire/guilt is not bad. Guilt arises when you don’t do what you desire.
47.37 - Many ways to satisfy desire
48.55 - Elliott - 9/11 age 14, thought war was cool, but felt guilty for thinking that.
49.43 - Cults: reflection of internal desire but they experience as a fact that they are responding to
50.35 - Primary process - unconscious vs. Secondary process - rational
52.21 - Oatmeal - comic strip - reference (2 birds talking -George Washington - wooden teeth)
54.20 - Backfire effect - tell somebody a piece of information that is tied to their emotions, they won’t be able to hear what you are saying because the same part of the brain that reacts to information that is threatening is also part of the brain that reacts to physically threatening things - so they run away from it - get angry, even with facts.
55.15 - The Gaze - we think we look at things objectively but there’s a part of ourselves within what we look at and we have to work on that.
55.44 - Quick to believe in things that connect with our prejudices.
57.57 - Language (humans) vs. Communication (animals)
58.00 - Language is when you can never say what you’re saying. You always say more or less.
58.47 - (example) “I want you to leave,” but what they mean is, “I want you to fight to stay.”
When you feel guilty, ask yourself, “What is my desire and how do I find a way to express that desire in a more healthy way?” Guilt is not about you’ve done something wrong. Guilt is that you’ve ceded to your desire. And you’ve had an opportunity to be aware/see your desire.