The Labyrinth: critical theory, culture, and politics

(Transcript edited for readability.) Barbie. The new film is set to come out on July 21st, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. Director, Greta Gerwig is the writer and director, who has been Oscar-nominated for her work. This fact is likely part of the reason for some of the increased hype around this film, as her name behind this indicates it's likely not a simple cash grab. But this is Holl...

(Below is the transcript for the episode but edited for readability) We've reached this moment in time where technology has become sublime. We are advancing so fast that we do not understand the mechanisms and workings of the things we use every day. While it's not necessarily a negative thing, there is a lack of understanding even among those who are developing, innovating, and maintaining these...

“Fantasies are fate defining in the sense that they determine the “content” of the repetition compulsion, giving our desire its inexorable direction, and making us single-minded lay preoccupied by, and doggedly faithful to, certain existential designs and preferences even when these undercut our well-being. To the degree that they endow us with a misleading sense of the role we occupy in the world...

“The elevation of the love object to the dignity of the Thing can result in intense aggression towards the object. As Lacan tersely observes, “ I love you, but, because inexplicably I love in you something more than you—the objet petit a—I mutilate you.” — Mari Ruti, The Singularity of Being This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episo...

Here are some helpful videos for further research and perspective that I find to be well-thought out and from people of the transgender community… (Philosophy Tube) Identity: A Trans Coming Out Story ContraPoints: Pronouns The episode of Dualistic Unity that I was commenting on: here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, vis...

Plastic Pills episode mentioned: Here A few sound bites… from my episode. “We spend life learning how to lose everything. And then we die. Where we’ve truly lost everything.” “Life is like watching a show where we never get to see the f*****g end.” “And in the end, we spend our life telling ourselves that everything is going to be fine.” “Man has built up the rational world by his own efforts, but...

The essence of the theme for this episode: If we begin seeing that the system or the political is what produces the individual or our concept of the personal...then we realize the personal or the individual has never really existed. Plastic Pills stream mentioned: here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslaby...

This is an episode of the podcast where I use this clipped discussion by the podcast Lex Fridman and the author of Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind by Annaka Harris (partner of Sam Harris) to open a discussion around the self, the idea of it being an illusion, and our sense of will. Anyway, I’ve always been hesitant in using the language of “illusion” around the sens...

"I would say that in my scientific and philosophical work, my main concern has been with understanding the nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular as a coherent whole, which is never static or complete, but which is in an unending process of movement and unfoldment." — David Bohm “That in language our message comes to us from the Other, and—to state the rest of the principl...

For more posts, dream journals, dream analyses, and weird fiction... https://aphilosophersstone.substack.com/ “Everything exists; nothing exists. Either formula affords a like serenity. The man of anxiety, to his misfortune, remains between them, trembling and perplexed, forever at the mercy of a nuance, incapable of gaining a foothold in the security of being or in the absence of being.” — E. M....