I kind of think of it as an illusionary elimination of all fear and lack. When in intense pain, you can get the illusion of not being afraid of it, because you’re already there. Hence, the fear expectation is void. Perhaps intense pleasure can give the illusion of a similar bliss , of all fear being gone.
I have never thought about it this way, but I really like your perspective! "the bliss of all fear being gone" because we're already in the midst of what we feared most -- and yet we live.
hello I'm not sure if you still reply on these but thought it was worth an ask anyway. I found the idea of jouissance being a mobius strip of pleasure really interesting and the story of a guy getting hit by a car and describing it as jouissance made me laugh, because it made sense in my head, some things we experience can have both aspects of pleasure and suffering simultaneously, or the distinction between them can become blurred, and that would be my definition of jouissance as well. But after a few days of digging through a few different interpretations of it I'm a little confused and was hoping you could clarify, I read that jouissance is thought to be what happens after you transgress the pleasure principle, and my humble understanding of that is "too much pleasure is suffering", or sort of exceeding ecstacy would become dysphoria. Is there something I don't understand completely and what are your thoughts on "exceeding pleasure vs pain and joy at the same time" thank you
Hi, friend! Thanks for taking the time to ask a question and engage. I really appreciate it. What I didn't bring into this video, but which is relevant, is the difference between desire and drive in Lacan's formulations. I'm only a couple steps ahead of a beginner when it comes to reading Lacan, but my personal interpretation of things here is that pleasure relates more to desire, whereas jouissance is related more to drive. Desire is a lack or void that we feel must be filled, and thus we search for objects to fill it. Pleasure has this shape to where we feel a tension or conflict and want to resolve it through the acquisition of some object which will correlate with an affective state of resolution. However, drive involves continual repetition around the lack rather than an attempt to fill the lack. Drive enjoys its failure to fill the lack, it enjoys its falling short, it enjoys simply its own repetition. In the realm of drive, I think we find ourselves more on the terrain of jouissance. Jouissance is the intensification of a contradiction through its continual repetition, not the dissolution of the contradiction through the relaxation of pleasure. This intensification is both painful and enjoyable. Ironically then, it is desire which always fails (because it cannot fill its own lack), whereas drive always produces its goal, for its very aim is failure. Did you find this comment helpful at all? Please let me know if you don't feel that I'm properly addressing your question.
@@samsaradiagnostics Hello, well thank you for taking the time to respond I wasnt expecting to hear back from anyone haha. Ah okay, i've always thought of drive as a means to 'drive' yourself pleasure so to speak, in life i've understood drive be used interchangeably as a word for motivation so cheers for pointing that out, I wouldn't have made that distinction on my own. Does lacan talk more about drive in ecrits? you have me really interested in this now, i've always known about Faust and the futility of desire being an endless chase but haven't come across any answer that feels right to me other than schopenhaur's idea of "understanding the pursuit is meaningless but doing it anyway" sort of thing. I feel like I really need this at the moment, or maybe that's just my desire talking haha. I've had ecrits on my bookshelf for a while but have been a little intimidated by after trying and failing to read Being and Nothingness by Satre, any suggestions or your own ideas would be really appriciated. cheers dude
@@---vj2de Reading "drive" as "motivation" is not bad though, because drive is this insistence which compels us to continually repeat and repeat, almost like something which is undead in us which carries us along. If you want to dive more into Lacan's Ecrits, I'd say two things -- (1) there is going to be a free two-day online conference about Lacan's Ecrits on Feb 24-Feb 25, which I would recommend that you join us for (You can learn more here: philosophyportal.online/writing-for-a-first-cause). I will be presenting on Sunday at 8:30 AM (Pacific). (2) The conference is being hosted by PhilosophyPortal, which is organized by Cadell Last. I highly recommend his RUclips channel @PhilosophyPortal and also his Lacan course at philosophyportal.online/ecrits There is only so much which can be accomplished in an exchange in RUclips comments, so my encouragement is to engage with the PhilosophyPortal community if you are curious and want to learn more, because I've found them to be a helpful and vibrant online community of thinkers.
In an act of resistance, there is 'jouissance', this joy fused with the death drive. And this dark joy of rebellion is, in fact, the meaning of life.
I kind of think of it as an illusionary elimination of all fear and lack. When in intense pain, you can get the illusion of not being afraid of it, because you’re already there. Hence, the fear expectation is void. Perhaps intense pleasure can give the illusion of a similar bliss , of all fear being gone.
I have never thought about it this way, but I really like your perspective! "the bliss of all fear being gone" because we're already in the midst of what we feared most -- and yet we live.
hello I'm not sure if you still reply on these but thought it was worth an ask anyway. I found the idea of jouissance being a mobius strip of pleasure really interesting and the story of a guy getting hit by a car and describing it as jouissance made me laugh, because it made sense in my head, some things we experience can have both aspects of pleasure and suffering simultaneously, or the distinction between them can become blurred, and that would be my definition of jouissance as well. But after a few days of digging through a few different interpretations of it I'm a little confused and was hoping you could clarify, I read that jouissance is thought to be what happens after you transgress the pleasure principle, and my humble understanding of that is "too much pleasure is suffering", or sort of exceeding ecstacy would become dysphoria. Is there something I don't understand completely and what are your thoughts on "exceeding pleasure vs pain and joy at the same time"
thank you
Hi, friend! Thanks for taking the time to ask a question and engage. I really appreciate it.
What I didn't bring into this video, but which is relevant, is the difference between desire and drive in Lacan's formulations. I'm only a couple steps ahead of a beginner when it comes to reading Lacan, but my personal interpretation of things here is that pleasure relates more to desire, whereas jouissance is related more to drive. Desire is a lack or void that we feel must be filled, and thus we search for objects to fill it. Pleasure has this shape to where we feel a tension or conflict and want to resolve it through the acquisition of some object which will correlate with an affective state of resolution. However, drive involves continual repetition around the lack rather than an attempt to fill the lack. Drive enjoys its failure to fill the lack, it enjoys its falling short, it enjoys simply its own repetition. In the realm of drive, I think we find ourselves more on the terrain of jouissance. Jouissance is the intensification of a contradiction through its continual repetition, not the dissolution of the contradiction through the relaxation of pleasure. This intensification is both painful and enjoyable. Ironically then, it is desire which always fails (because it cannot fill its own lack), whereas drive always produces its goal, for its very aim is failure.
Did you find this comment helpful at all? Please let me know if you don't feel that I'm properly addressing your question.
@@samsaradiagnostics Hello, well thank you for taking the time to respond I wasnt expecting to hear back from anyone haha.
Ah okay, i've always thought of drive as a means to 'drive' yourself pleasure so to speak, in life i've understood drive be used interchangeably as a word for motivation so cheers for pointing that out, I wouldn't have made that distinction on my own.
Does lacan talk more about drive in ecrits? you have me really interested in this now, i've always known about Faust and the futility of desire being an endless chase but haven't come across any answer that feels right to me other than schopenhaur's idea of "understanding the pursuit is meaningless but doing it anyway" sort of thing. I feel like I really need this at the moment, or maybe that's just my desire talking haha. I've had ecrits on my bookshelf for a while but have been a little intimidated by after trying and failing to read Being and Nothingness by Satre, any suggestions or your own ideas would be really appriciated.
cheers dude
@@---vj2de Reading "drive" as "motivation" is not bad though, because drive is this insistence which compels us to continually repeat and repeat, almost like something which is undead in us which carries us along.
If you want to dive more into Lacan's Ecrits, I'd say two things --
(1) there is going to be a free two-day online conference about Lacan's Ecrits on Feb 24-Feb 25, which I would recommend that you join us for (You can learn more here: philosophyportal.online/writing-for-a-first-cause). I will be presenting on Sunday at 8:30 AM (Pacific).
(2) The conference is being hosted by PhilosophyPortal, which is organized by Cadell Last. I highly recommend his RUclips channel @PhilosophyPortal and also his Lacan course at philosophyportal.online/ecrits
There is only so much which can be accomplished in an exchange in RUclips comments, so my encouragement is to engage with the PhilosophyPortal community if you are curious and want to learn more, because I've found them to be a helpful and vibrant online community of thinkers.