End 2023/Enter 2024
What Is Happening?!
This month Philosophy Portal is launching an all-new project: the live-event space. Every month we will host four events structured by one theme in a hope to create a new learning dynamic and creative potentials.
The first month will focus on the concept of “libido” and explore this concept through the events:
Concept Cave (a space to learn about fundamental concepts),
The Edge with
(a space to walk the razor’s edge of contemporary thought/practice),Thought Lab with Alenka Zupančič (a space to learn and think with a thought leader about our shared becoming), and
Real Talk with Eliot Rosenstock (a space for free association and full speech).
To learn more or to get involved, visit Philosophy Portal: live event space.
One of Slavoj Žižek’s more recent philosophical talking points is that we are living in a “topsy-turvy” world.1 In that spirit, I have made a ritual out of asking those closest to me: what is happening?!2
On January 30th 2023, I hosted an event with some of my core collaborators in 2023 to engage an exercise of speculative cognition on what is most alive in the present moment. This exercise was quasi-guided by three of the major topics that seemed to consume the focus of the Philosophical Conversation podcast series on my channel:3
Psychoanalysis outside of the clinic
Theo-politics
Frontier philosophy
This specific exercise is what I called the “Thing-In-Itself” of speculative cognition, as it was sandwiched in-between a “pre-game” or a “Drinks Before” with David McKerracher of
, and a “Cigarette After” with Joris De Kelver and Daniel L. Garner of .For the “Drinks Before”, David and I mostly discuss:
Time-energy: focusing on time-energy, but with a primary focus on energy (because you can have the problem of low energy even with a lot of open free time), as well as practices that help us cultivate an energy where our “cups runneth over”
Deep readings: our double commitment to deep textual readings of primary sources as a conceptual mediation that is in-and-for-itself (e.g. for David Being and Time, or Das Kapital)
Scene to Milieu: the importance of moving from a scene to a milieu, the relation between virtual and physical reals, performing for the big Other, overcoming parasocial relationships, the difference between Gemeinschaft (community, love, family) and Gesellschaft (society, rational self-interest), as well as
Big Other in Lacan versus The Other in Levinas: The difference between the big Other of the anonymous symbolic social order and the real of the concrete Other who is unpredictable and unschematisable, breaking all pre-conceptions and normative orders.
For the “Thing-In-Itself” I was joined by Thomas Hamelryck,
, Carl Hayden Smith, , , , Filip Lundström, David Högberg, Max Macken, of , and Jason Bernstein. This three-hour free-for-all of speculative cognition revolved around:Starting point: God can no longer be ignored for a politics of human society and that the New Atheists are increasingly perceived as funny ridiculous characters (a point emphasised by Thomas Hamelryck)
The Christian tradition: emphasises that God is Love, and how do we bring love to politics? What is a politics of love? The emphasis on the Christian Trinity with the three terms God the Father = Phallus, Jesus = Castration, Holy Spirit = Symbolic Order; and that any honest path through Christianity must include the crucifixion as symbolic castration laid bare (points emphasised by
),Politics of Love: must contend with the reality of status anxiety (rank in hierarchy), the anxiety of not-knowing what the other thinks, the constant threat of excommunication by the other, as well as all of the behavioural modifications that come about as an intrinsic quality of belonging to a given group; in this situation we often find ourselves in a politics of love that easily and quickly becomes propaganda for in/out group identification (points emphasised by
)Scapegoating: we live in an era of scapegoating (i.e. blaming an absolute enemy as absolutely guilty in order to solidify group identity), and that any politics of love must address the issue of scapegoating, namely: an emphasis on a moral rule of “not scapegoating” over any emphasis of a politic of feelings or love as affect (a point emphasised by Thomas Hamelryck)
Envy: that a politics of love must think about the problem of envy, that the biggest problem in communism will be a problem of rivalrous dynamics driven by envy between people who are “too similar” or perceived as “equals”, and that the “Gods are nearer than ever” when we see the world through “envious eyes” (points emphasised by
and )Public Theology: we must struggle with not avoiding but thinking through issues of theology and public life, which is not just a question of God but also “threshold potentialities”, that violence emerges in areas of such “threshold potentialities” and must be “managed” in order to maintain community building in relation to immediate issues; here, in order to manage violence in relation to threshold potentialities, we need symbolic anchoring in speech (points emphasised by
)Congregation: an ethics of congregation is needed to fill, not the “God-shaped hole” but the “ritual shaped hole” at the core of our society, places to escape politics of totalitarianism and propaganda; and thus an emphasis on ritual and practice and just concretely showing up at something every week with a group and going through the motions independent of metaphysical beliefs; and that this will be more and more necessary as psychedelics hit the mainstream (points made by Filip Lundström)
Boundaries: that we must not forgot the importance of boundaries in relation to the fundamental problem of difference/sameness; that people need walls and limits and borders, that far from separating us, boundaries are what we need to give us the “right distance”, and that this is under threat today, where it is hard to develop the “safe distance” from the “big Other” (anonymous sociosymbolic order), specifically in late/techno-capitalism (and that such a solution requires the symbolic domain) (points made by
and )The Hard Way: there is always a danger in going back to the ideologies of old in whatever forms, that these forms may be today both unadaptive and broken, and that to oppose this tendency, we must cling to the real of hard spiritual practice, or “The Hard Way” to break out of ideological mentations (a point emphasised by
)The Sword as Difference: that the Bible emphasises also the hatred of and separation of familial bonds (Jesus bringing the word, separating from biological Father/Mother); and that there is a “godless” aspect to the Bible (New Testament) (a point emphasised by
)Acid Trip at the End of Time: the Bible ends with an “acid trip” and the “battle to keep the Holy Spirit alive” as a practical rather than a theoretical problem (again an emphasis on congregations, practices independent of metaphysical belief), as well as a clear delineation of roles as well as a mindfulness of competition for similar roles (these points taken together seem to reflect the importance of both prohibition, i.e. clear roles/competition for similar roles and ritual, i.e. congregations and acid trips as the Holy Spirit) (points made by Filip Lundström and David Högberg)
Scapegoating (x2): emphasise on a politics that “stops believing in scapegoating”, i.e. that stops believing someone is absolutely guilty, that this is the appropriate “structural anthropology” (see: Rene Girard) for the human being, and that this is a more general-universal application than an emphasis on the human being as oriented by a politics of alienation in capital (Marxism) or phallic energy (Freudo-Lacanianism) (points made by Thomas Hamelryck)
Capitalism and/as Religion: questioning whether we really want to build religion and congregations, and whether we should rather focus on escaping naive forms of religious imaginary capture and concentrating on the problems of capitalism, specifically capitalism as structured by an “anal drive” to “hold onto resources” (bourgeoisie, upper class) as opposed to releasing excessive flows (a point made by
)Nietzschean-Landian logic against Christian logic: questioning whether we want to remain human, and whether or not we should rather deify capital and technics, not for a utopian capitalism or a techno-utopia, but rather to die for something beautiful being birthed that is beyond/post-human, to see beauty in the tragic violence of the end of humanity (a point made by Max Macken)
Imaginary Acceleration, Symbolic Slow-Down: emphasis that we need a symbolic anchor to “slow down” imaginary capture of the technological singularity (where we, paradoxically, narcissistically see a world without us/human beings); that today we find ourselves in a psychosis of imaginary acceleration, and it is hard for neurotic structures to form in relation to a symbolic other(s); and that in this search for symbolic anchor we need spaces outside of the market, as well as valuation outside of market logic (points made by
)Paradox of Law/Sin: we must think through the dialectic of abstract versus concrete laws (idealistic visions versus the real of law), and that people can easily use good intentions and performance of sainthood as a premium instrument of hatred and evil, that people also sin excessively by leaning too strongly into salvation (points made by
)Tantric Christianity: thinking that tantra is a part of the solution and that this solution can be thought within Christianity as opposed to being thought outside of it; the best examples of tantra inside Christianity are “Christian mass”, and that what is “tantric” about it, involves turning what is most base and broken, dirty and perverted, into “gold” or “shiny” substance (moreover, the well-known Christian metaphor of “eating the body of Jesus” = most perverse) (points made by
)Destiny: the basic problem is what destiny we are moving towards? Are we trying to resurrect traditional Christianity? Are we going in an anti-Christian post-human Landian direction? Are we staying with the Fukuyama liberalist end of history direction? Are we in a Heideggerian situation where we have exhausted ontology? Moreover, why one destiny over an other? We should return to thinkers like Oswald Spengler and focus again on destiny and teleology (a point made by Max Macken of
)Politics of Dignity / Call for Anthropocentrism: a politics of love must lead to or include a politics of dignity, that we are all on the same sinking boat, we are all a part of the same mess and catastrophe. While philosophy is the best way to alienate ourselves in the need to sublate capitalism, are we repeating alienation over and over again? The human being is important to think here because the human being is the alienated being par excellence, and in that sense we must advocate for a radically anthropocentric point of view as a speculative gesture (a point made by Jason Bernstein)
DMT to Become More Human: we now have the technical capacity to experiment with permanent DMT drip feeds, and what we discover in these states is that we are not human yet; while the post-humans think we are already done and the meta-humans think we should cease reproducing, the DMT state tells us that we must become more human before we cease to exist (a point made by Carl Hayden Smith)
Prohibition and Ritual: prohibition helps us differentiate (processes), ritual holds a space for undifferentiation (loss of identity); but prohibition and ritual must be clearly separated and not united, there must be boundaries between the two; if you lack boundaries between prohibition and ritual you risk falling into psychosis of a permanent ritual; the contemporary West is falling into addiction and low level rituals because of the loss of real community rituals (a point made by Thomas Hamelryck)
Values and Time: two big challenges are, on the one hand, values, specifically, values inside/outside capitalism and market logics, and on the other hand, time, specifically, how do we inhabit time differently? These questions may be connected, and we must think about ways of organising in the public sphere a politics where these two things can be thought through in ways that are difficult when we are stuck in modern market dynamics (a point made by Chetan Anand)
Finally, after that madness, we entered the “Cigarette’s After” with Joris de Kelver and Daniel L. Garner of
where we discuss:Concern for/Thoughts about Philosophy Portal: that our conversations are important and opening new philosophical frontiers, but how to make these conversations more accessible to a larger audience (concern of language, excessive use of jargon, insular logics that no one else can understand); focus on Michel Bauwens cosmo-local projects, that Philosophy Portal can open us to projects that go global (creating new shared languages, perspectives) but we must also consider locality, and bringing our work more local contact and in service of the physical real as well (points by Joris de Kelver)
Institutional Paradoxes: how can we think of the relation between powerful small group dynamics and dynamics that scale? This forces us to to think about social problems without institutions (lack of discipline, coordination, higher order goals) and social problems with institutions (conformity, excessive structure, dead logics); the “sweet spot” seems to be “connection without binding” as well as an ability to “have powerful ideas” that people are able to hold with conviction as well as maintain a “faithful presence” in relation to institutions (points made by Daniel L. Garner of
)Concerns of an Overman: many people struggle with an anxiety associated with an identity too tightly coupled to an institution, but fear that if they jump out of it they will have to confront practical questions (“how am I going to pay the bills?” “how am I going to support a family?”), but also existential questions (“my life is meaningless”); how do we construct local spaces and connect people who do not know each other but offer philosophical containers to help think through and work through these practical and existential issues (points made by Joris de Kelver)
Demand in/for the Commons?: there is work outside of wage labour that makes wage labour possible (we might call it “shadow work”); this “shadow work” is a problem of the commons, and this work may be demanded unconsciously, i.e. it is a demand that people have but do not know that they have, so how do we better develop demand? How do we “train anxiety” related to messy relationships outside of institutions where we no longer have predictable schemas for “dealing with the other” (this requires courage); our demand was trained by the school system preparing us for institutional life, so “shadow work” can seem “foolish” (i.e. we are not getting paid/making much money, not getting a job/why are you doing it?) (points made by Daniel L. Garner of
)Anxiety: keep focusing on anxiety and how to navigate/manage anxiety, build local spaces where we can get better at training anxiety and hold negative energies, speak through negative energies — important philosophical drive (end point by Joris de Kelver)
Cause of Meaning Crisis: we have a crisis as a result of unearned joy, we have become childish and impulsive instead of child-like and mediated (through the “camel” and the “lion”); how to be a Saint that doesn’t think of yourself like a Saint = focus on action/activity (over explicit metaphysical belief), and encountering the other person/body as temple of life = key for beautific vision (must face our fears, do things that are extremely emotionally challenging) (final point by Daniel L. Garner of
)
And that is the Year End recap for Philosophy Portal! You can watch the entire video below:
Thanks to everyone who has helped Philosophy Portal in 2023! Your work, whether related to our courses, our anthologies, our podcasts, our retreats, and other works is much appreciated. If you are interested in checking out any of the major projects that we were engaged in, check the links here:
Science of Logic (course / conference)
Abyssal Arrows (anthology / livestream)
Écrits (course / conference coming soon)
Philosophical Conversations (podcast series)
Here is to 2024!
Again: this month Philosophy Portal is launching an all-new project: the live-event space. Every month we will host four events structured by one theme in a hope to create a new learning dynamic and creative potentials.
The first month will focus on the concept of “libido” and explore this concept through the events:
Concept Cave (a space to learn about fundamental concepts),
The Edge with
Layman Pascal
(a space to walk the razor’s edge of contemporary thought/practice),
Thought Lab with Alenka Zupančič (a space to learn and think with a thought leader about our shared becoming), and
Real Talk with Eliot Rosenstock (a space for free association and full speech).
To learn more or to get involved, visit Philosophy Portal: live event space.
Žižek, S. 2020. Overture: Living in a Topsy-Turvy World. In: Surplus Enjoyment: A Guide for the Non-Perplexed. Bloomsbury. p. 1-18.
See: What Is Happening!? End 2021, Enter 2022 (w/ Various Artists) ft. Owen Cox of
, Daniel Fraga, , Daniel Dick, Daniel L. Garner of , of , .See as examples of “Psychoanalysis outside of the clinic”: Psychoanalysis of Artificial Intelligence with Isabel Millar, The Racist Fantasy with Todd McGowan, Psychoanalysis and the Politics of the Family with Daniel Tutt, Negative Psychoanalysis for the Living Dead with Julie Reshe, The Direction of Desire with Mark Gerard Murphy; for examples of “Theo-politics”: Žižek’s For They Know Not What They Do with Michael Downs and David McKerracher of
, The Orthodox Heretic with Peter Rollins, Embracing the Void with Richard Boothby, Pragmatists Guide to Crafting Religion with Malcolm and Simone Collins, Death of the Millennial Left with Chris Cutrone; and for examples of “Frontier philosophy”: Belonging Again with Daniel L. Garner of , Metaphysics in Psychedelic Psychotherapy with , Digital Literacy and Critical Media Theory with David McKerracher and Ann Snelgrove of , Education in Transition Between Worlds with Bruce Alderman, Experimental Psychology and Reflective Science with Davood Gozli, Reading Lacan’s Écrits with Samuel McCormick of , A New German Idealism with Adrian Johnston, Metaphysics of Exo-Life with Andrew Davis, Nick Land Meets Theory Underground with Michael Downs and David McKerracher of , Heidegger and Nishitani with of , Xagick with and Owen Cox of , Schelling and Whitehead with Matt Segal, and Sex, Death and the Real of Life with Barry Taylor.
It was an honor and pleasure to get to discuss these things with you for your year in review event!
Amazing roster of thinkers