i am so grateful that i can watch this awsome content for free. After 3 years of trying to understand some lacanian theory, you made it possible for me to finally put everything i've heard together in just 3 days, you are amazing!!
Thank you for all your videos on the death drive. I have been working the Lacanian concepts of the drive in a paper I am writing on, and your presentation has provided some very fruitful quotes and better understanding of what the death drive is. It sounds like that the objet petit a and the death drive seem to go hand in hand here. I am not sure but I think the lamella predated his introduction of the objet petit a, and this is what we are referring to. I also find it fascinating that every drive is a death drive... It's strange because drive is the essence of the psychical life, and thus even though you suggested we shouldn't talk of the dialectic of eros and thanatos they seem to be a moebius strip in a sense... the death drive is the life drive. Thank you, I also enjoy many papers and other things you have written!
Other death drive films - Cool Hand Luke, Thelma and Louise, Drive, the original Crash (1996), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and most especially and relentlessly - Leaving Las Vegas
@@derekhookonlacan A reverse feel good film - yes. Suggest you read the novel - it provides the protagonist with almost no rather than minimal motivation for his 'timely' end.
are there not many forms of symbolic death based on temporality, topology, magnitude, intensity... and so on? de Sade's lack of tombstone is an image of a self-realized second death (which stands in contradiction as his writings have proliferated), a kind of release, self-attained freedom. post-partum as that may be, such similar freedom is also attained on a daily basis, when we fall into sleep, dream being the dream of death, from within death, towards death. social media strive to some sort of 'symbolic permanency' which is deathly in itself, as a weight of sorts, and there is this anecdotal 'release' and 'lightness' once one self-erases such profiles. on the contrary, the phenomenon of 'canceling' is something which is imposed by another, by the Other, predominantly fueled by the very 'symbolic permanency' of social media, initially unbeknownst to the inflicted subject, sometimes caught by surprise, an imposed mortification which resembles castration more than release or freedom - while practically excluded, the subject is suddenly detained as if in a prison, a sudden death which can be too painful to endure, even leading to driving the person into actual suicide - reminds me of the recent case of Hana Kimura. are we all not subjects of the death drive? is it not a continuous process which animates both life and death?
The Freudian idea that even when we are in sleep dreams appear with words, images, and dialogues and wound us. In other words, signifiers and images smuggle enjoyment and horror both into our sleep through dreams. This eventually disturbs us even when we are fast asleep, rolled up into a ball - waking us from within the dream. The edge at play here is the very ‘rub’ upon which Hamlet`s famous soliloquy dwells. These are the words of Hamlet, speaking to himself when he thinks he is alone. To die-to sleep, No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there's the rub: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause-there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life. What constitutes the problem, makes us twitch and hesitate, is not the thought of death but the thought of that, in some way as it haunts us in the sleep of life - might haunt us in our sleep of death. What scares us is that even in the sleep of death something might come and disturb us, haunt us, and would not let us (not) be. In precisely this sense the ‘death drive’ (which in psychoanalysis is the conceptual name for this dimension) is not much something that aims at death as a strange deviation from supposed homeostasis of death itself. This is what makes the term undead, used by Zizek in speaking of the notion of the drive. We could also say that in themselves, life and death are just parts of the same cycle. Life as life is not yet a declination from death or the opposite of death; rather it is the continuation by other means. Declination of life from life does not simply produce death, but the death drive as something undead that haunts both life and death. Life is indeed a mere curious extension of death, its own curious detour, if there is not another detour appearing within this detour, another declination that disturbs the sleep of life, is precisely the Jouissance or the drive. The organism dies but it is more than an ideological or religious phrase to say that there are things (creations) that outlive it. And it is precisely at this point that one has to situate the concept of the death drive, and insist on abandoning the idea of the duality of the drives: there is only the death drive. We can say: the death drive is what makes it possible for us to die differently. And perhaps, in the end, this is what matters, and what breaks out from the fatigue of life: not the capacity to live forever but the capacity to die differently. We can even paraphrase the famous Samuel Beckett`s line and formulate the motto of the death drive as follows: Die again, Die better!
Hi Buddy. That's a wonderfully articulate elaboration which perfectly captures some of what I was trying to get to. I especially like your formulation in respect of how what is more disturbing than death is "that even in the sleep of death something might come and disturb us, haunt us, and would not let us (not) be". Brilliant. If I hadn't yet published my paper on Zizek and the death drive, I would certainly cite you, quoting exactly that line, emphasizing how this undercuts the prospect of a dualistic theory of drives. Also, your paraphrasing of Beckett's famous line is totally apt. I have just finished a paper linking Fanon's idea of the zone of nonbeing to the Lacanian death drive, and I also invoked Beckett's line as a kind of mantra of the drive which goes on, continues, and whose insistence is strengthened and prolonged precisely by failing (as in Lacan's distinction between goal and aim of drive). Very valuable comments. Thanks for sharing them.
Thanks, Derek but I must explicitly make it clear here that these lines were quoted from “What is Sex” by Alenca Zupancic. I was so elated to see you working through this wonderful text and could not help but put these quotes in context. What excites me is the aftermath of this publication of ‘What is Sex’ by Zupancic by MIT Press, the arrival of “Sex and the failed absolute by Zizek”, both brilliant works. Thanks again.
i am so grateful that i can watch this awsome content for free. After 3 years of trying to understand some lacanian theory, you made it possible for me to finally put everything i've heard together in just 3 days, you are amazing!!
Thank you for all your videos on the death drive. I have been working the Lacanian concepts of the drive in a paper I am writing on, and your presentation has provided some very fruitful quotes and better understanding of what the death drive is. It sounds like that the objet petit a and the death drive seem to go hand in hand here. I am not sure but I think the lamella predated his introduction of the objet petit a, and this is what we are referring to. I also find it fascinating that every drive is a death drive... It's strange because drive is the essence of the psychical life, and thus even though you suggested we shouldn't talk of the dialectic of eros and thanatos they seem to be a moebius strip in a sense... the death drive is the life drive. Thank you, I also enjoy many papers and other things you have written!
As always, thank you for another exciting synthesis of Lacanian theory!
hey! reading the alenka book right now, after reading ethics of the real (from her as well) which seems like it also be relevant here
She has got some great comments on the death drive towards the end of 'What is Sex'. I like how she links Lacan to Deleuze.
What about the Freudian idea that fear of death is a substitution for the fear of castration?
Other death drive films - Cool Hand Luke, Thelma and Louise, Drive, the original Crash (1996), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and most especially and relentlessly - Leaving Las Vegas
Great examples, thanks. Leaving Las Vegas is a kind of reverse feel good film, and therefore an especially good example.
@@derekhookonlacan A reverse feel good film - yes. Suggest you read the novel - it provides the protagonist with almost no rather than minimal motivation for his 'timely' end.
are there not many forms of symbolic death based on temporality, topology, magnitude, intensity... and so on? de Sade's lack of tombstone is an image of a self-realized second death (which stands in contradiction as his writings have proliferated), a kind of release, self-attained freedom. post-partum as that may be, such similar freedom is also attained on a daily basis, when we fall into sleep, dream being the dream of death, from within death, towards death. social media strive to some sort of 'symbolic permanency' which is deathly in itself, as a weight of sorts, and there is this anecdotal 'release' and 'lightness' once one self-erases such profiles. on the contrary, the phenomenon of 'canceling' is something which is imposed by another, by the Other, predominantly fueled by the very 'symbolic permanency' of social media, initially unbeknownst to the inflicted subject, sometimes caught by surprise, an imposed mortification which resembles castration more than release or freedom - while practically excluded, the subject is suddenly detained as if in a prison, a sudden death which can be too painful to endure, even leading to driving the person into actual suicide - reminds me of the recent case of Hana Kimura.
are we all not subjects of the death drive? is it not a continuous process which animates both life and death?
The Freudian idea that even when we are in sleep dreams appear with words, images, and dialogues and wound us. In other words, signifiers and images smuggle enjoyment and horror both into our sleep through dreams. This eventually disturbs us even when we are fast asleep, rolled up into a ball - waking us from within the dream. The edge at play here is the very ‘rub’ upon which Hamlet`s famous soliloquy dwells. These are the words of Hamlet, speaking to himself when he thinks he is alone.
To die-to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause-there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
What constitutes the problem, makes us twitch and hesitate, is not the thought of death but the thought of that, in some way as it haunts us in the sleep of life - might haunt us in our sleep of death.
What scares us is that even in the sleep of death something might come and disturb us, haunt us, and would not let us (not) be. In precisely this sense the ‘death drive’ (which in psychoanalysis is the conceptual name for this dimension) is not much something that aims at death as a strange deviation from supposed homeostasis of death itself. This is what makes the term undead, used by Zizek in speaking of the notion of the drive. We could also say that in themselves, life and death are just parts of the same cycle.
Life as life is not yet a declination from death or the opposite of death; rather it is the continuation by other means. Declination of life from life does not simply produce death, but the death drive as something undead that haunts both life and death. Life is indeed a mere curious extension of death, its own curious detour, if there is not another detour appearing within this detour, another declination that disturbs the sleep of life, is precisely the Jouissance or the drive.
The organism dies but it is more than an ideological or religious phrase to say that there are things (creations) that outlive it. And it is precisely at this point that one has to situate the concept of the death drive, and insist on abandoning the idea of the duality of the drives: there is only the death drive.
We can say: the death drive is what makes it possible for us to die differently. And perhaps, in the end, this is what matters, and what breaks out from the fatigue of life: not the capacity to live forever but the capacity to die differently. We can even paraphrase the famous Samuel Beckett`s line and formulate the motto of the death drive as follows:
Die again, Die better!
Hi Buddy. That's a wonderfully articulate elaboration which perfectly captures some of what I was trying to get to. I especially like your formulation in respect of how what is more disturbing than death is "that even in the sleep of death something might come and disturb us, haunt us, and would not let us (not) be". Brilliant. If I hadn't yet published my paper on Zizek and the death drive, I would certainly cite you, quoting exactly that line, emphasizing how this undercuts the prospect of a dualistic theory of drives. Also, your paraphrasing of Beckett's famous line is totally apt. I have just finished a paper linking Fanon's idea of the zone of nonbeing to the Lacanian death drive, and I also invoked Beckett's line as a kind of mantra of the drive which goes on, continues, and whose insistence is strengthened and prolonged precisely by failing (as in Lacan's distinction between goal and aim of drive). Very valuable comments. Thanks for sharing them.
Thanks, Derek but I must explicitly make it clear here that these lines were quoted from “What is Sex” by Alenca Zupancic. I was so elated to see you working through this wonderful text and could not help but put these quotes in context. What excites me is the aftermath of this publication of ‘What is Sex’ by Zupancic by MIT Press, the arrival of “Sex and the failed absolute by Zizek”, both brilliant works. Thanks again.