Todd McGowan, "Self-Sabotage: How We Try Not to Flourish" (Polity Press, 2026)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: New Books Network

Episode: Todd McGowan, "Self-Sabotage: How We Try Not to Flourish" (Polity Press, 2026)

Host: Helena Wiesing
Guest: Todd McGowan
Date: July 25, 2026

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Overview:

In this intellectually rich episode, Helena Wiesing speaks with philosopher and psychoanalytic theorist Todd McGowan about his provocative new book, Self-Sabotage: How We Try Not to Flourish (Polity, 2026). The conversation delves into why humans, both individually and collectively, undermine their own happiness and success, exploring concepts from Hegelian dialectics, psychoanalysis, politics, and contemporary culture. McGowan argues that self-sabotage and alienation are not simply obstacles to be overcome, but dynamic sources of creativity, meaning, and even hope in human life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Against the Ideology of Happiness and Self-Interest

• Not Comforting—but Hopeful: McGowan jokes that his books don’t aim to provide comfort and are “against even the notion of happiness” ([01:32-01:53]). However, he asserts that alienation and self-sabotage can paradoxically be sources of hope and creativity ([03:15]).
• “All the great things we've created are the result of ways that we've sabotaged ourselves and made our lives worse… they are also ultimately beneficial” – McGowan ([03:28]).

The Critique of Self-Interest as Ideology

• McGowan and Wiesing discuss the prevalence of the “ideology of self-interest” and challenge the notion that humans are fundamentally motivated by personal gain ([05:40]).
• Dialectics vs. Dualism: The book distinguishes between simple oppositions (dualism) and dialectical relations, arguing that self-interest and self-sabotage are not adversaries, but dialectically co-constitutive ([06:00-07:43]).

“What’s more fundamental is our self-sabotaging. You can even see self-interest as in a dialectical relation to that.” – McGowan ([06:58])

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2. Psychoanalysis, the Unconscious, and Self-Sabotage

• McGowan links self-sabotage to the unconscious, noting that “our self-sabotaging is necessarily unconscious”—if it were deliberate, it would lose its subversive, disruptive force ([08:38]).
• Wiesing highlights that even psychoanalysts are not immune from the self-interest trap, and that the denial of the unconscious is pervasive ([09:45]).
• “Others always know us better than we know ourselves, because they can see the way something else is operative in us that we constitutively cannot.” – McGowan ([11:36])
• The danger of reducing everything to self-interest is that it becomes an easy explanation, foreclosing deeper analysis or self-understanding ([10:16-11:17]).

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3. Self-Sabotage in Intimate Relationships

• The conversation pivots to self-sabotage in love and relationships ([12:24–15:20]). McGowan teases a potential future book on love, reflecting on his own experiences and cultural observations.
• Both lament the commodification of relationships, noting how consumerist logic frames romantic partners as status symbols ([20:15–21:16]):
  • “The relationship…never is going to better you. It's always going to take something.” – McGowan ([18:04])
• Key Insight: The toxic and destabilizing elements of intimacy are not accidental failures but intrinsic to the transformative power of love ([18:55–19:33]).
  • “There's a kind of toxicity to every relationship... that's the very thing that's drawing us into the relationship in the first place.” – McGowan ([19:12])

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4. Commodification, Consumerism, and the Endless Search for Completion

• The book critiques how self-improvement culture, body modification, and consumerism ensnare people in cycles of disappointment and self-torment ([21:09–24:52]).
  • “We're actually more addicted to feeling disappointed in our bodies... sort of self-torturing ourselves.” – Wiesing ([22:33])
• The capitalist promise of fulfillment via commodities or perfect partners merely recycles the fantasy of “completion”—but real life resists any such closure ([24:30–26:38]).
  • Referencing Plato (the Symposium) and popular culture (Jerry Maguire’s “you complete me”), McGowan explains the deep roots and modern mutations of this fantasy ([24:52–26:38]).

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5. Meaning through the Death Drive, Culture, and Politics

• McGowan articulates the role of the death drive (from Freud and Lacan) in animating meaning and sublimity in life ([32:07]).
  • Creative acts are tied to the ways we go against our self-interest, sometimes even destructively.
  • “We generate the significance of our existence through the way in which we sabotage ourselves.” – McGowan ([33:17])
• The same force underlies both the best and worst of humanity—from artistic creation to addiction ([34:06–36:49]).
  • “When we get over... it's boring. Like, you have to deal with boredom as a way of balancing out our self-destructive tendencies.” – Wiesing ([37:31])

Relating Self-Sabotage to Politics:

• Applying his theory, McGowan discusses populism and the political right: “So many discussions of the populist right... are about why are these people acting out not in their own self interest, right?” ([48:10]).
• The danger is treating groups (and individuals) as simply self-interested, thereby denying their subjectivity and unconscious motivations ([48:10–49:20]).

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6. The Role of Humor and Cultural Memes

• Cultural memes (“FAFO,” “my toxic trait is…”) are analyzed as popular confessions or even subversive acknowledgments of self-sabotage ([50:32–52:37]).
  • “It’s almost a confession of self-sabotage... it's a way to try to contain it, but in containing it you express it.” – McGowan ([51:51])

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7. Theory Deep Dive: Lacan, Freud, Jung, and Sabina Spielrein

• McGowan credits Lacan for radicalizing Freud’s concept of the death drive, but expresses personal affinity for Freud’s personality over Lacan’s style and late philosophical turns ([53:18–55:42]).
• Sabina Spielrein is credited with major early insights on destructive creativity, though McGowan distances his own notion of “productive” self-sabotage from her reproductive focus ([56:01–58:23]).
• A brief, playful exchange about Jung and the Jungian concept of the shadow—as another way of living with the perpetual “split subject” ([58:35–60:14]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I'm sort of against even the notion of happiness. So it's not meant to make you happier, right?”
  -- Todd McGowan ([01:40])

• “Alienation is the source of our hope. Self-sabotage is the source of our hope.”
  -- Todd McGowan ([03:19])

• “Our self-sabotaging is necessarily unconscious. I don't think... Because if you set out to do it then you're... not sabotaging yourself.”
  -- Todd McGowan ([08:38])

• “There's a kind of toxicity to every relationship... that is also the possibility of it moving us to some other kind of position.”
  -- Todd McGowan ([19:12])

• “We are addicted to this... feeling of disappointment... We're sort of holding onto that disappointment and sort of like self-torturing ourselves.”
  -- Helena Wiesing ([22:33])

• “There is no arrival, there is no completion… Every commodity offers completion.”
  -- Todd McGowan ([24:30])

• “We generate the significance of our existence through the way in which we sabotage ourselves.”
  -- Todd McGowan ([33:17])

• “If you believe in self-interest, then you believe that it must be possible for you to realize your self-interest, which would be completion.”
  -- Todd McGowan ([25:36])

• “You can’t choose [your form of self-sabotage] because it’s unconscious… but maybe you can relate to it differently, partly by not rejecting it.”
  -- Todd McGowan ([41:09])

• “If we deny our own unconscious… we end up denying the unconscious of the other, which is to kind of deny the subjectivity of the other, which I think is bad.”
  -- Helena Wiesing ([45:48])

• “My mom once said you have children to keep you humble.”
  -- Todd McGowan ([52:53])

• “Writing is my self-sabotage. It gets in the way of so much pleasure I could otherwise be having…”
  -- Todd McGowan ([63:09])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:05 – 03:15: Introduction, humor, and setting up the theme: philosophy that attacks happiness, self-sabotage as hopeful.
• 04:54 – 07:43: Dualism vs. dialectics, critique of the ideology of self-interest.
• 08:38 – 11:17: The unconscious roots of self-sabotage; psychoanalysis and the impossibility of full self-knowledge.
• 12:24 – 16:07: Self-sabotage in relationships, commodification of love, and the dangers of self-interest narratives.
• 19:12 – 21:52: Toxicity in relationships as both a danger and a source of transformation.
• 22:33 – 24:30: Addiction to disappointment, endless cycles in consumer culture.
• 24:52 – 27:11: The myth of completion in romance and life; historical and philosophical roots.
• 32:07 – 36:49: The death drive as a source of meaning and sublimity, with examples from art, addiction, and mundane life.
• 38:50 – 40:39: Using fantasy (cinema, reading) as “public” self-sabotage; moral ambivalence.
• 48:10 – 49:20: Applying the theory to politics/populism and the need to see subjectivity in political opponents.
• 50:32 – 52:37: Humor and memes as (partial) confessors of self-sabotage.
• 53:18 – 55:42: Theoretical discussion: Lacan vs. Freud, and the legacy of Spielrein and Jung.
• 63:09 – 66:21: Writing as self-sabotage; the pain and necessity of suffering for creativity.
• 66:12 – 66:50: Nietzsche’s quote: “what’s written in the blood”—the cost of creation.
• 67:10 – 67:20: Light ending: the lesson is “watch Pride and Prejudice!”

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Tone and Style

The conversation is lively, probing, and self-aware, blending academic rigor with candid self-reflection and humor. Both Wiesing and McGowan demonstrate a willingness to interrogate their own motives and investments, modeling the very kind of honest, dialectical engagement the book advocates.

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Conclusion

This episode stands out for its depth and breadth, weaving together questions of psychoanalysis, philosophy, culture, and personal experience. For listeners, McGowan offers an original, even counterintuitive, thesis: self-sabotage is not merely an error or pathology, but a dynamic, creative force entwined with our desire, our relationships, and our meaning-making. Rather than trying “to flourish” by eradicating alienation and self-sabotage, we would do better to recognize, accept, and relate to them—both in ourselves and in others.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[B]

Hello, this is Helena Wiesing, your host on the New Books Network. Today I'm talking with Todd McGowan about his new book, How We Try not to Flourish, published by Polity. Welcome to the show, Todd. Thank you so much for coming on, Helena.

[A]

Thanks so much for having me. It's always my pleasure to talk to you.

[B]

And, Todd, I actually have a joke for you.

[A]

Okay. Wow, that's exciting.

[B]

So a guy walks into a bookstore and says, do you have some really intense Hegelian, psychoanalytic existential philosophy literature? And the clerk says, do you mean self sabotage? And the guy says, I mean, yeah, I guess it's that too.

[A]

That's really funny.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Did you make that up?

[B]

I did. And I have to say, I've been studying your work. And when I talk with people about, oh, these are some interesting books, like, what do you think? And people who are also into psychoanalysis. I've actually had some people tell me, why are you doing this to yourself right.

[A]

Right now?

[B]

I know, and I think this is very kind of telling of your book, of this book, and the direction your work is going to, because, I mean, Todd, you're not exactly in the business of comforting people.

[A]

No, but it is true that I'm trying to answer that question, right? Like, why is that appealing? Right? Like, that's one of the things that I'm. That even drew me to write the book. But, yeah, that. I mean, it's kind of obvious, right, that that's not my. It's not meant to be. I'm sort of against even the notion of happiness. So it's not meant to make you happier, right? Like that. Yeah.

[B]

And I think most people, if you tell them, like, oh, I'm reading this literature, it's this, you know, this book, and the. The author is saying that he's sort of against happiness. Most people will say, why are you reading that book? You should not.

[A]

I know. I think they would, but I don't. I. I know. I don't know. I find I'm more drawn to a book that's not trying to make. Like, I've never seen the movie E.T. and someone's just scolded me for that. And I just. I thought, oh, it's just gonna. It's just uplifting. And I can't. I, you know, I just. For some reason, I just can't do it. So I feel a little bit almost the opposite. I mean, I'm not. I'm against this total nihilistic pessimism, too. Like that's, that's uninteresting to me. So it's not like I just want to revel in the misery.

[B]

Well, you're, you're actually, I mean, I actually have some questions exactly about this that we'll get to because I think this is exactly where your, your work is touching on. And so this is really good. Like one of your other books, one of your previous books, Embracing Alienation. In that book you also talk about how alienation is universal and we. Not only can we not escape it, we shouldn't try to. And now the self sabotage is also universal and we shouldn't try to escape it. So, Todd, is there any hope for us humans?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I think those things are the source of our hope too. Right. I mean, that's my point. Right. That alienation is the source of our hope. Self sabotage is the source of our hope that we, that all. I would even say all the great things we've created are the result of ways that we've sabotaged ourselves and made our lives worse. Right. Like even things that seem like they're great. I was just reading. I don't know where it was. I think it was in the Times this morning, but someone said the, the, the two things. No, it wasn't the Times. It was some sports guy saying that the, the two times a person who buys a boat is most happy is the day that they buy it and the day that they sell it. And I thought. But that's what, what he, this person was saying was that buying a boat is giving yourself a lot of trouble. Right. And so I think that, that, but there's still a lot of enjoyment that's garnered from being out on the ocean or the lake and, and, and, and being on a boat. So it's. So that, that's what I would say. Like all these incredible, whatever achievements that people have, they're all due to the way that they make more trouble for themselves or go against their self interest in some way. So I don't see it as. I'm kind of a. I don't know. This sounds dumb to say since you, as you just related those two titles, but I feel like I'm sort of optimistic person and I, I. Part of me is seeing the way in which even these things that are, that create things are. Create some horrible things in our lives are also can create things that are really beneficial to us ultimately too.

[B]

Yeah. And you're talking here about what the, what the book is also about is about the dialectics of self sabotage. Right. And, and I really, it was really helpful for me the way you distinguish dualism from dialectics. Right. Like the, because a lot of people will, will acknowledge our self sabotaging behavior but like really have this dualistic view and, and it comes from what. One of the things maybe you can speak to that is, is one of the first chapters. I, I like to call it sort of the ideology of self interest. It's almost like there's an ideology of it. So I wonder if you could speak to that because it's, it really struck me how prevalent it is today that it's like an ideology and very problematic if you question it.

[A]

Right. I think that's true. I think it's so true. I think so. I think you're absolutely right to say that self interest is itself an ideology. That is that we're always motivated by some self interested drive. I guess. I mean I wouldn't call it a drone, but that's what I think the way that it's thought and usually that's rooted. I think for most people it's ultimately rooted in biology. Even if they're not biologists, they think that we have this biological instinct to be self interested beings. And I think that what that does is it causes us to. And then I think you're right just to speak to this dualism dialectic thing. Right. They'll say, oh, there are times in which we don't follow our self interest, but that has to be, that's opposed to self interest of dualistic way of thinking. And what I trying to say here is. Well, what's more fundamental is our self sabotaging. But you can even see self interest as in a dialectical relation to that. So the times that we do seem to follow our self interest, it ultimately is part of a self sabotaging structure that's at work and kind of vice versa. That ultimately the way that we self sabotage does in certain ways help our, help our, help us out. Right. So that would be. So I do think you have to. You can't think of those two things apart from each other ever. Like I think that's the pro that would always. I always think that like that. And this when you said Hegelian whatever, right. Like that's, that's to me the great Hegelian point that you, you can't think of a thing in isolation. You always have to think of it's the relations that constitute it. And so that I think people that claim to be to these disciples of self interest or these ideologists of Self interest. They think of it just in, it's just in isolation and they think of people in isolation from each other. When they think that, they act self interestedly, I think.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I mean there's so many things here you're bringing up. I mean obviously if people are familiar with your work, they know, you know, Hegelian dialectics is obviously a huge part of that. And you do mention a little bit in the book. But. But it's not like a, it's not like a. There's not like a long Hagel chapter in the same way. Right. But I, I actually wanted. I might as well just jump ahead to what you're, you're saying there because I think when I was reading your book, I feel like, and I don't know, maybe you, you say it and I didn't catch it, but like I feel like you, you circle around what I see is so prevalent with the way that there's this ideology and pressure of self interest. And I see that very tied in with obviously consumerism and capital, for sure. And in the way that there's something about this pressure to me that feels like denial of the unconscious.

[A]

Absolutely right. I think that's absolutely right. I don't think I probably say that, but I think that I love that idea and I think that's exactly right. That because I align the way that we self sabotage. I think the unconscious is broader than this. But I do think that our self sabotaging is necessarily unconscious. I don't think. Because if you set out to do it then you're. Then you're actually not sabotaging yourself. You're fulfilling some. Finding pleasure in it or whatever. So I do think that you're right that there. And I think that's the most scandalous part of Freud for people is this. And it's interesting how it gets. The unconscious gets translated to what is just not thought. Right. And I think that's really important to keep the distinction. You can do things that are non conscious, but that's not the same as an unconscious motivation for them. Right. And I think that's a really. That's a, that's. I think that distinction seems to be lost, but I think it's part, you're part of what you're talking about this denial of the unconscious today.

[B]

And, and I see it also in what I find interesting is that even people who are very invested in psychoanalysis and interested in psychoanalysis and talk about it, I still see like, like people would say things that are kind of effectively peddling the, like the self interest narrative.

[A]

Right?

[B]

And, and, and which just proves the point. It just proves that even if you've studied psychoanalysis and devoted your life to it, you don't get around you, you don't get around it.

[A]

Right? I think that's really right, Helena, because doesn't it, one of the ways it manifests itself and the people that I think, at least that I've known that you're talking about is that it, that what becomes unconscious is our self interest itself, right? That, oh, you're acting like you're doing this altruistically, but there's really a hidden self interested motivation behind it. Behind it. And that's the unconscious. But that is not the, from my perspective, that is not the unconscious at all. Because it's so easy to make it conscious, right? You can say, oh, what do you know, I was really self interested. And so that's not, and I think that's one of the real ways that psychoanalysis gets bastardized into this. It's this, it's, Freud is saying it's self interest driving everything we do and he's forgetting about that. Oh, sometimes we're driven by altruistic motives. I think that's completely wrong. And I think the way you describe it is right, that there are even some heretics within, within the camp sound.

[B]

Yeah. Or it's like, it's interesting to see how in one moment you can be like, you could like, I read this and I'm like, yeah, like it's really resonates and for sure I'm not above this. Like, you know, for sure, I know it will come out any day. Like, yeah, I would also be like saying something where it's like, I, I can know myself, I know what I want, I know what I'm doing. Right. And of course I could never know what I want fully.

[A]

I know and I think, I mean, I do that all the time too. And even I will all fall for the ideology of self interest all the time, right. I even, I mean when I'm making pedestrian little political analyses just, or, or even when I'm thinking about my own life, right? Like I think, oh, I remember, why am I doing that? Because I really, you know, take pleasure in a certain thing. So I, I, I, I think you're right because it's unconscious. Like you and I, Freud, I think was great about this, that the, that this is why others always know us better than we know ourselves, right? Because they can see the way something else is operative in the way that we just Constitutively cannot.

[B]

Yeah. And to that point there's one really good chapter where you really go into the relationship part. I actually wanted when I was reading that. I wish that that chapter would kind of turn into a book on its own.

[A]

Well, I think it's gonna. I think I'm gonna write a book on love. And so that I think that's gonna be. Then that's gonna get expanded because that's. I, I've taught a class on love in the romantic comedy and I tell that story. I assume you're thinking of the story I'm thinking of. Yeah, I tell that story in class all the time. And, and, and it's. What's funny is that I won't tell that part. I'll wait and get into it. I'll explain. But I always tell that story about my own, the story about myself when I'm teaching course and I often teach stuff on love. And so it's, it's been a, it's a thing that I have. I'm driven to write about. At the Home Depot, get up to 15% off all installed carpet projects for a limited time. Featuring brands like Lifeproof, Lifeproof with pet proof technology, Home Decorators Collection and Trafficmaster. Take your pick of carpet built for real life and designed for real comfort. Plus with installations starting as low as 49 cents per square foot and a free measure to get you started, we'll handle the hard parts for you. Offer valid July 16, 2020 26th through August 2, 2026. Exclusion supply for licenses see homedepot.com licensenumbers

[B]

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[A]

It's a good title. I know.

[B]

So. But you're gonna have to find another title for that.

[A]

I'll have to come up with another title. Right?

[B]

Yeah, but, but that chapter about. So just. It's a chapter where you talk about your own relationship experiences and connected to this whole topic of self sabotage. And, and really, because I feel like in relationships, intimate relationships, this is where it gets so, so obvious. Like so clear. Right?

[A]

It's so clear. I agree.

[B]

And I think it's, it's really wild how when you look at sort of the social media, online discussion or public discourse around relationships that this, this narrative of self interest is just so massive. And even, even the so called, you know, experts on, you know, relationship, you know, this is, this is the, the best take on relationships. You can just hear this, this underlying message of, of like the self interest narrative. And it's, it's really, it's interesting because I think, I think there's nothing like in the relationship where we are confronted with the unconscious. Like you say, the other person knows us better. And I wonder if there's something also about in our time that our fragile egos, we don't like that.

[A]

Right. Which is why I. Right. I think that's why love is on the decline. Right. Because there's a. I think just like there's a retreat from the unconscious, I think there's also a retreat from love. And one of the ways we retreat from it is the way that like the swipe. When you can just swipe to the. I know. How do you get rid of them? Swipe to the left, I think. Right. I don't know how it goes, but I know I once joked to my students that I said I'm such a leftist that I would never have a date today because I won't even swipe to the right. And so anyway, so I think it's swiped the right to accept. But I do think that there is a generalized retreat from that. My friend Mari Rudy wrote this book called the Case for Falling in Love. And I think I love that title. It's this odd title, kind of like why would you need to make the case for it? But I think she had the sense that there was this feeling of the danger of love and the need to make yourself open to that. Just like to make yourself open to the unconscious. And those are kind of the same thing, I think.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And it's funny how you bring up the swiping thing because I think reading your book I was also struck by how there's something about our time where, you know, we talked about like achievement, commodity money, success, but then also relationship and status. Like, like they, those things have really gotten mixed in together with like this idea of like achievement and betterment and our expectations in life. So, so there's something about like this being confronted with the death drive in relationships. It kind of goes right into the, it confronts this narrative of like, you know, everything you do should be about bettering yourself, whether it's your income or your relationship status.

[A]

I know. Which is crazy. Right? Because the relationship, it never is going to do that. It's never going to better you. It's always going to take something. I mean it's going to provide you some kind of satisfaction that's not available anywhere else, I think. But it's always going to take something from you. Right. Like it's going to inconvenience you. It's going to reveal things about yourself that you would rather not have revealed and disturb you. Right. That are very disturbing. And I think, you know, sometimes it can be even toxic. Right. And so it's so disturbing that it becomes pathological. But I think what I don't, I didn't talk about this here, but in this book. But this is one reason why I thought I should write about it even more. That there's a, I think there's a real relationship. Like there's a kind of toxicity to every relationship. Right. And I think so when people get stuck in those relationships, we should, we shouldn't be surprised because that's the very thing that's drawing us into the relationship in the first place. Is this, this possible, it being very damaging to us? Because that, that, that is also the possibility of it, of it moving us to some other kind of position and freeing us from whatever we were stuck in. So I think, I think I really didn't sell enough the how potentially self sabotaging a relationship can, can be. That though there's a real continuity between the kind of self sabotaging that happens in what we would call a good relationship and the kind that happens in what we would call a toxic or a bad one.

[B]

Yeah, I mean there, there's just, there's, there's something about the, the the, the commodification of relationships too. Right. Like the, the pressure. And I think also what, what that pushes to is also that we like this possessiveness that we, we do. We have this. There's sometimes this implicit idea that if you just. You have to know yourself fully and you have to know your partner fully and then you can, you can control each other. There's a sense of control. Right, right. Of things we ultimately cannot control.

[A]

Right. Because I think you're right that the romantic partner has become. Take on the form of a commodity.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And just like if you buy a nice car, it increases your feeling of self worth or the recognition you get in the society. I think same thing. If you get a partner that's a good appealing commodity, then that increases your recognition. And I think that that view is so, it's just incredibly widespread, I think. And, and, and I think that view is just terrible. Like, I think that that really is something to just to be absolutely lamented and confronted because I think once you see that like you, to me, the, the relationship. Having a real love relationship is never going to happen when you're, when you view the other person in that, in those, in that way. In that way.

[B]

No, yeah. I think there's, it's. It's very depressing to, to relate to other people as commodities. That's probably one of the most depressing things.

[A]

Right. I mean, I was just thinking of the. And it's interesting how plastic surgery. Plastic surgery would be a great example of this. Right. Like you're trying to make yourself into a better commodity. And it's migrated from. It used to be. It's still primarily women, but it's really migrated also to men. And I was thinking also about this. I saw this. It's. I don't think it's a good movie called the Materialists. And, and now guys have their legs broken and then they get inserted to thing to make them taller. And the guy in Materialist did that. And I just think, wow, that's just. To me, it's so. I just, I find that that's one of the saddest things. I mean, plastic surgery itself I think is sad and, and then. But the leg breaking, I, for some reason that just really got me. I don't know.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's really, it's really deep. Well, this reminds me also how I. Your work has also inspired me to think about with consumerism because I think people will say no. Like, I want to feel better, I want to be my best self, live my Best life. I want to pursue this sort of like whatever it is, consumer goods or commodities or plastic surgery, just to feel my best self so I can feel good. But you know, reading your book, I, I'm thinking, no, I think, I think we're actually more addicted to feeling disappointed in our bodies.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like we, we are addicted to this. That feeling of like, oh, I'm not living up to the standard. Like my body is not living up to that. Like, like we're, we're sort of, we're sort of holding on to that disappointment and sort of like self torturing ourselves.

[A]

I, I think it's so. That's such a great point. And I was, my spouse, Hillary Nero, he was telling me about this or she would read it and I was, I read it then about these women that become addicted to plastic surgery so that the surgeon, usually him, but him or herself, has to tell them, no, no, you're actually fine. Because they can't stop thinking that there's something wrong. Like they're so. They're more invested in thinking there's something wrong than in fixing it. Which is of course would be my point about it, why it fits into this self sabotaging thing. I also would say if you look at the results of people that get it, it's always this, it's always evident and it, and in the long run it's always terrible. Right. Like we see, like I just, I just, to me, the contrast between someone, I shouldn't say their names, but whatever, between Diane Keaton, who clearly did not have plastic surgery and she looked fine, she looked like an aging person looks fine. And Meg Ryan, who clearly did like the contrast between them as aging. Like it's, it's so I think it's. Everyone would say that the person who didn't do it ends up looking better. And so I feel like that's the self, that's the way, the self destructive aspect. Like the more you get, the more you feel like you need. And it never, it never lets up. That's a feminine example. But I think that the same thing would be true with the guys who are getting it or the guys who are doing their legs. Like I, I'm three inches taller, but maybe I could be five inches taller. Like there's no, I don't think there's a lim point once you go down that path.

[B]

No. And I mean this is that thing that we don't ever get complete. Right. There is no arrival, there is no completion. I think that's also a really important notion for your book and your work, which is again, also something that's sort of like, not particularly accepted to talk about.

[A]

Right? Because I think that every commodity offers completion. So if you like to say that you're never going to achieve completion is to thwart that whole mechanism. And I think it's especially true with romance. I think one of the ways that romance gets sold to us is as like that famous Jerry Maguire, you complete me line, right? Like, I think that that idea that the partner will complete us is really, really prevalent and. Or the. I mean, it goes. It has a long history because it's in. In Plato's Symposium, there's even this idea of, like, that we're searching for the other, the missing half of ourselves. So I feel like that although Plato put it in the mouth of Aristophanes, so clearly he didn't agree with it himself. So I think that's. I think you're right, that that's really, really prevalent, that idea of completion. And that that's one of the things that is. I think it's part of this. It's related to the. What you call the ideology of self interest, I think, because if you believe in self interest, then you believe that it must be possible for you to realize your self interest, which would be completion.

[B]

But those very older philosophical perspectives on it, I mean, on completion or wholeness, I mean, you can. Even the religious big philosophies, they also, they talk about completion in a very different context than this very late state capitalism, dating culture and partnership. Right. It's like a very particular thing where we project some of those ideas of completion onto, like, partnership in the modern. A very recent phenomenon. Right, for sure, for sure.

[A]

Right, for sure, for sure. Yeah. It's totally. I mean, and I mean, even. I don't think Aristophanes in the Symposium didn't have this idea of a permanent. Like, I'm going to fix myself with the other. And I think that is how. I mean, that's why romance is such a. On the one hand, there's this, I think, what I described as a kind of fear of retreat from love, but there's still this attempt to find the perfect partner because that'll be the. This idea of the soulmate, I think, is a perfect example of the. Of the completion idea.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I don't know. Are you by any chance familiar with Leo Bursani?

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Yeah. You are? Okay, because. And he's fortunately not with us anymore because I've studied him and there's some par. Or I don't know parallels. But, like, there's something. Because he also talked about. He talked about this the way that there's something about coming into the world, being a human being is really intense and overwhelming. And it's sort of like we have to find a way to take pleasure in the pain of being alive to sort of survive. And then he also talks about, like, how, like, this idea of, like, knowing the other is a dead end and we have to sort of, like, let go of that if we're gonna have, like, meaningful relationships at this point. I just. I would love to hear if you know what. Your thoughts on it. Because he sort of touched a bit on this topic of self or death drive. Self sabotage.

[A]

Right. He does kind of like, I think of one of his famous essays is. Is the Rectum. Or is it the whole book? The Rectum of Grave. Yeah. And. And he wrote it. No, he didn't write that. I was thinking, does he have an essay on rope? No, I guess not. But. Yeah, so I think that he. He definitely. And I. I think that. I mean, I think just. It's a term. Just terminological difference. I don't really think there's that much of a theoretical difference. So, yeah, I find that. That. And it's interesting how he puts that in the direction of queer theory, of course, but. And which. So I don't. I think what. And I think that it's interesting how the notion of. The psychoanalytic notion of death drive has been, for queer theory, really important. And I think it's because the idea of reproduction is so crucial to the. To that. To the. The. Like, could you. Could you have a philosophy of completeness without emphasizing reproduction? I don't think you could. Right. And so that's why I think that's. The. All that stuff gets wrapped together. So it seems like that's why that's where the. The intervention of queer theory and Bersani, Lee Edelman too. I think that's where that kind of fits in well.

[B]

And I. I really don't mean to get too much into the weeds of that. It's just so tempting for me because I thought so much about it, so. Because. And I need to study personi more. But I get this sense that he has this kind of a relational way of thinking. I mean, he talks about the dialectics of receptivity of, like, with embodiment of, like, the receptivity. So I don't know, because when I read that, I thought that's probably very much against sort of your German Idealism, way of thinking. But I don't know.

[A]

Well, maybe. I don't know. I mean I didn't, I haven't found him alien. I mean I've always thought he was, we were kind of in the same camp, but maybe. Yeah. I mean, I don't know his relationship to Cottenhagel or if he even articulates that.

[B]

He does, he does.

[A]

Does he.

[B]

He's again mention. No, no, he mentioned. He does mention. I was just, I'm reading some and he, he's actually meant talking about some of that, that tension between Kant and Hegel.

[A]

Well, interesting. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, relationality is a tough one. Right. Because I think relation is often meant in. Hegel is all about revelation. I think we were just talking about dialectics. So that's all about relation. But then I think sometimes relation gets. Is thought of as just a one on one relationship taken outside of mediation. And then, then that's a very non German idealist way to think of it. So I'm always kind of. I'm not sure where people are coming from. They talk about relation. But I think it certainly is in some way compatible with Hegelian project. My project. Yeah. Because I think that's part of what Hegel's point is to see the underlying relation that otherwise is not visible. And I think that's part of what I'm trying to do in this book is to see there's a certain relation. And I think when you're. And this is why this love chapters or whatever I call it is romance chapter is important because it's about seeing the way that in, even in the relation that there's. That, that, that our self sabotaging actually is a way to open up a relation to the other. It's not a way to close it off. And I think that's, that was really important for me.

[B]

Yeah, I mean you say it's, I mean not, not just open up. I mean you, you, you also talk about like why is it that we, we have this tendency or setting. It's because it is in self sabotage that the other object or other becomes sublime, becomes elevated. That's how like you, you basically say that that is how meaning is created. Like, like deeper meaning.

[A]

Right. I really think that. So I think that one of the things that neither Freud nor Lacan nor I, I, I've, I've been reading a lot about this, these other, other psychoanalysis thinkers. I don't think they have really focused so much on what, what is the appeal of self Sabotage or what Freud calls death drive. I mean, and so that's one of the things I wanted to do in this book was to say, oh, what is like, what it does is it creates sublimity and it gives our lives meaning. And so that there's a. I never get. I don't think you ever escape the shadow of the thinkers that originally shape you. And one of them for me was Jean Paul Sartre, who's totally, you know, has no patience for the unconscious, would hate the idea of self sabotage. But he does have the sense of we, each of us have a project that animates our life, that gives our life meaning. And so that he wouldn't say it's created by our self sabotage at all. But that idea really is a lot behind how. What I was thinking about in this book, that you generate the significance of your existence through the way in which you sabotage yourself.

[B]

Yeah. And I think not just in that one chapter we've talked about, but then throughout your book, the other chapters you also bring it into. I mean you bring it into culture and politics and sort of like political struggle. I mean that's kind of how you revolve. It unfolds. And that's why I can't. I keep thinking about relationality and. Which I know is a horrible term you'd mean. Like. What do you mean? It could mean a thousand things. Right. But. But the thing I'm so interested in is this the way you see like understanding self sabotage, the death drive. It, it. We have to think about it in that relational context because it's how we create sublimity. But then what's also really tricky is so, so that can become really some of the best of humanity. Like bring the best of us.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And it brings out the worst of us in us. Like I think one concrete example which I see clinically. I know your book is not clinical, but like what I think about clinically is for example, like the most evident example of self sabotage that's really problematic is addiction. Because when you're an addict, you are harming everyone around you and you're causing real. Like you're really making people miserable around you. Right. Actively harming them. And what was interesting is that I, what I see in my clinical experiences, one of the things of becoming sober, you know, is that it's boring.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And people. And whether you have like a real severe, more severe addiction that's more. Also has biological elements, but. Or if it's more not as intense, but any kind of things that's sort of not good, not healthy, pathological. When you start to actually work on that and kind of not fix it but like sort of tame it, which, you know, believe it or not, that's happening all the time for people. What people will say is that life is kind of getting boring. It's boring to get better.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

Such an example of the appeal of self sabotage.

[A]

It's a great example and I think it. So Freud as you know, introduces death drive and beyond the pleasure principle and the thing that he gives a couple examples, he's like, oh, we can reconcile that with pleasure principle. But then when he gets to exactly what you're talking, which is he calls it the negative therapeutic reaction that tips him over to say wait a minute, there's some, there's something else going on here. And I think that's really, it's so indicative that. And I think he doesn't say it's boring, it's because they think it's boring like you did. But I think that's absolutely it that when we get over and I think I almost would say this is probably going too far. I'm tempted to say we all have a kind of addiction and that's the way we self sabotage that. I mean obviously there are addictions that are serious, that are much worse. But even I, I have to have certain terrible food for me after dinner or else I just not, I feel terrible at when I go to bed. So that dimension, I think I really like that idea of boring without it that if we give that up, we give up the very thing that I say creates sublimity but also creates interest that makes our lives interesting to us. And so I think there's a. You, you have to, I mean you're right, you tame it down or you substitute something else that functions kind of in that way without the terrible destructive elements of whatever. Gambling, alcohol, drugs.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And which is very meaningful and but that's maybe that's the thing, that's the challenge and maybe that's why I think, you know, this is a book that talks about things but so many people just do not want to be confronted with is that we have to kind of reckon with the fact that there's going to be things where we have to deal with boredom and like as a way of balancing out our self destructive tendencies. Like we're going to have to live in that kind of negotiation and the way life is now with the potential level of excitement and comfort and joys in life, it's like that sounds like the worst right?

[A]

It does. And I think it's so. It's almost hard, it's almost impossible to be bored today. Right? Like that is a real difference. When I was a kid, I remember as a kid, and you should never be bored as a kid. But I remember being bored all the time as a kid and now I'm never bored. And I. Because I have to listen to something or I have another thing to watch, or I'm just. Even when I'm just screwing around, I'm just watching clips from films that I really, you know, that I've seen a hundred times. Like for Pride and Prejudice, like I watched the proposals scene over and over and over again, which is funny because it actually is about a. I watched the first proposal scene, I should be clear, which is about a rejection. So it's interesting that I am drawn to this. The very scene which is. I mean, I really. I've probably watched it 150, 200 times. I'm drawn to the scene which is about. Which is about self satisfying. It's about the way that both characters really, instead of admitting what they feel for each other to sabotage themselves. And yet there's a. That's also. But my point, I mean, I don't mean to get too distracted because your point is you can't be bored. And that inability to feel boredom is part of the way we're not successfully dealing with our self sabotage. I think that's really crucial.

[B]

It makes sense that you talk about movie clips. I mean, you study cinema and things like that. That's also in your book. Of course you bring that as you do in basically all your books where you use the cinema to kind of illustrate and reflect on that. And I think you've said that you see movies as sort of like public fantasies that in that way can be used in that way. Because I mean. And I really don't want to set up some kind of moralistic idea of like the correct forms of self sabotage versus the non correct. I want to be very mindful of that moralism. But like there's something about, like if we. Are we able to use our fantasy to process our death drive versus someone who is really struggling with that and therefore needs to sort of concretize the death drive in really destructive ways. I mean, is that. Am I getting two more.

[A]

I think that's pretty good. Yeah, I think that's pretty good. Because that's one of the things I really wrestled with when writing this book is how. What's the difference? Because without slipping into morality as you're right. Like, you don't want to moralize about it, but there clearly are, like, everyone would say, someone addicted to heroin and someone addicted to reading Hegel, they're like, okay, sorry, there's a. There's like one. It has much more deleterious consequences than the other. So I, I do think that. But I, I don't. I. The problem is, of course, you can't choose because it's unconscious. You can't. You're like, okay, I'm going to destroy myself by reading Hegel too much. You can't do that. But there is a. Certainly Hegel doesn't advance your self interest. It's hard. It's. There's a kind of. There's a. There's certainly a lot of pain and difficulty attached to it, much more than there is this pleasure of mastery that almost never comes. So I do think the whole point of Hegel.

[B]

That mastery never comes.

[A]

Right, exactly. It's the whole point. I mean, if you read this, the self consciousness, a critique of mastery has failed. So I. So I think in a way, it does fit perfectly as much as being addicted to heroin. But I don't think you can't just move by fiat from one to the other. So that's really, it's interesting. I really struggled with exactly what you're talking about as I wrote the book. But I really like what you're saying, that there's a way to. I don't know, is it. What would you call it? Like, get some purchase on your self sabotage, Find a way to maybe integrate it into your life or just relate to it differently. I think that's maybe what it would mean. Like, you relate to it differently partly by not rejecting it. Right. Like, I think part of the way that we fall into damaging addictions is that we, we. We're convinced that this is a thing we're trying to avoid. And the more. And it's transgressive and the more we're convinced of that, the more we're drawn to it. So I, I know that's part of it, but I don't. I mean, I, I'm really. This is, I think, just an open question for me what it is like, how to fit that in without slipping into morality.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. That's the big, big challenge. But I think, I mean, you do talk about this in the book also in the conclusion chapter, you talk about like the. Oh, I don't mean to spoil it for readers, but like that you wrap it up around this, around, like, how are we relating to it. Right? That's the question, that's the pressing question, how we relate to it. And I was thinking, and again with this awful term relational focus. Like I'm thinking of like imagine relationality when there's much more of a, understand neutral understanding that you have, you have a death. Right, I have a death drive. Like that's because, because that brings us back to like the universe, the universality of it. Like the universality of alienation. Like we're all alienated, we're all in death drive. Like there was something there. I think, you know, the more you can sort of accept the fact of your own death drive that also can maybe make you more accepting of other people's death drive.

[A]

Right, right. Which I think is really important for just again I'll use the term now for our relationality. Right. Like just for the way we relate to others. Because if we, we're much more, I don't really care for this term either. But we're much more intolerant of others when we, when we expect them to be self interested and then they're not. Right. And I think I was thinking of. So I'm a parent of twins who are now 22. They just graduated from college and neither one of them, I'm going to out them, neither one of us managed to get a job yet. Right. So I, I, I feel like, okay, I'm a failure as a parent, but I also feel like part of it is it's their way of, I mean it's clearly an act of self knowledge on their part, but it's a way to free themselves from the parent. Like all the ways in which as a kid you, because what your parent really wants is you to be successful, at least happy. All these things that are, that self sabotage destroys like successful happy. You can maybe even accept your own self sabotage, but in your children, I think just from my perspective it's really, it's really difficult to accept. So I feel like that's a, that that part of self sabotage is that, that it's tied to freedom. And I think that's a really, that seems to me real, just freeing yourself from your parents or freeing yourself from the. And so if you recognize that then I think how you relate to the other person becomes better. You're just, you're just able to, you're able to be more understanding whatever the term would be of the way the person's acting. Even though it seems like it's why are they ruining this meeting or why are they, or whatever it is or why are they ruining what. Or as a professor, why are they ruining my class? Right. Like, what are they. What are they trying to do? But of course, if you see it's part of their own way of self sabotaging, then it becomes clear.

[B]

Yeah, and I know what you say about freedom there. That's maybe allu. You're alluding to. You have some other work on like psychoanalysis and existentialism. That's some of. That's also things you're working on, right? Coming.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Okay. Yeah. Well, what you're just saying there's really fascinating to me because I mean, maybe this is what I mean by bi. Relationality. This bad word. Because I mean, obviously this book and your. Builds on or continues your work around sort of this understanding. We can say, of course, lickinian inspired of like the split subject and this important distinction between symbolic identity and subjectivity. And there's something there. When I was reading your book, that's what I mean by relationality in that when we deny the fact of our own death drive or self sabotage, when we are sort of peddling this narrative of self interest, we're sort of actively denying our own unconscious. And when we do that, you will sort of end up denying the unconscious of the other, which is to kind of deny the subjectivity of the other, which I think is bad.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with everything you just said. Yeah, I think that's a great summary of what my position would be. So. Yeah, so I completely subscribe to it. And I think that. That. That it's one thing. I mean, it's interesting, right, what you said, just. It makes me think so much that it's easier to accept your own unconscious than the unconscious of the other. Right. Like, just like it's. It's easier to accept your own lacking subjectivity than to accept the lack in the other. Because that's traumatic. Right. So more. I mean, both are traumatic, but that's more traumatic. So I think. I think. I think you're right that it's a way ultimately of denying the unconscious of the other. And I think that to. And. And. Or the. Which is the subjectivity of the other. Right. And so you're reducing the other to a symbolic identity. I think that's a really important thing. Right. Like, don't, like, make sure you see the subject there and not just the identity. I think that's a really key.

[B]

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[A]

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[B]

And for like political discussions there, this is what's so misunderstood is that if you're sort of talking about, for example, a particular group of people only from the kind of perspective of self interest, you really denying them subjectivity, which is really has huge consequences.

[A]

Absolutely. I mean, I think, don't you think every so many discussions of the populist right around the world are they're all about why are these people acting out, not acting in their own self interest. Right. Absolutely. Everybody says that and why are they so stupid?

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's all. So, so there's a real lack of any sense of there's subjects there, that there must be a reason why they're acting against their self interest. Right. Because that's where they find a satisfaction. So I also don't think we should think of it as anomus. We should think that's what we're doing too. Right? We're doing it too. We're just not doing it in the same way.

[B]

But that's what we're doing with a different flavor. Yeah. It's kind of like our thing as humans.

[A]

Right? Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No, I think that's right. Yeah.

[B]

You know, you, we, you. One of the chapters you, you write about this sort of like, how do you say it is a Is a. Is it a meme? I don't know, like the expression fafo

[A]

around and around and find out.

[B]

Yeah. Which is like a kind of a, I guess you could say pop culture phrase for schadenfreuden. But I like that because I think that's so interesting to kind of capture those things going on in culture. Because what I was thinking about with that chapter is that because I think I talk a lot. I've talked about how I think there's so much denial. Right. People just will not want to acknowledge the unconscious somehow. Really, really not easy for our fragile egos today. And there's something about then humor where it's like, okay, maybe you can open up a little bit through humor, which is. I think that's. It's really fascinating and interesting and I don't know if I'm maybe like overestimating the power of it. But, like, I don't know if you heard this meme that started around 2019. This meme, my toxic trait is.

[A]

Oh, no, I haven't heard that. No.

[B]

This is a very, very common, very familiar. Most people who are used to scrolling, right. They will know this meme. And good for you not being on social media. Good for you. Stay off. Don't, don't.

[A]

I just. I. The problem is I'm too addictive. I would once on, I wouldn't be ever off.

[B]

So that would be stay off, stay off and continue to write books. But this is a meme that's been used so much, and it's really. And it's so simple. It's sort of like. It's sort of like crazy how simple it is. Because the only thing of the meme is to say my toxic trait is. And then you just say, what is your toxic trait? Which could be like, my toxic trait is that I could spend my summer just reading novels instead of signing a new book contract.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Like, that would be your toxic trait. I don't know. Some person's toxic trait.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good. Okay. And maybe hers, I don't know.

[B]

But. But it's just interesting to see when people make fun of this. Right? Like, or it could be like someone sees a bear. Right? My toxic trait is to think that that bear would not attack me. Right. I'll boop it on the nose. Like. Like, what do you think of that? When it kind of sneaks in these little openings where people.

[A]

I think that isn't that interesting because it's like a way. It's almost a confession of self sabotage. Right? Or like it's a way. I mean, it's both. Right. Because it's a way to try to, to contain it, but it's also in the containing of it, you express it. Which is exactly what jokes do. Right? Jokes, they contain, on the one way and one level, the unconscious. But they also. This is Freud's great point. I think they also are the way that we express it. So I think that's. Yeah, I think that's really a good. I kind of wish I chose that example instead because one of my twins said that FAFO is out now. That's just. No one says that anymore. So when I finally, I get to analyze a cultural meme or whatever, it's already gone. I should have just stuck to shot in Freud, I think. But whatever. It makes the point.

[B]

I mean, you're always going to be behind your kids. That's just a fact.

[A]

I guess that's fine.

[B]

Right. And they're always there to tell you how much you're behind.

[A]

They, like, they really enjoy doing that.

[B]

Yes, of course they do. Yeah. That's their, their enjoyment. And they always find a way to sort of like, get in where it tickles. Right. Like.

[A]

I know, I know. My mom once said you have children to keep you humble. That's what she said. I think that's probably. It was pretty good analysis on her.

[B]

Yeah. That's. Wise words. Wise words. That's. That's true. Yeah. To keep you humble. Yeah, I, Yeah, I, I mean, I, I. You don't talk so much about Lacan in this book. Maybe it's going to come in the next one. You go more into theoretical. But I just.

[A]

Yeah, that's true.

[B]

I know you sort of, you, you do have a little bit of waxing and waning on Lacan. Right. And I know. But I also know there's some really important fundamental things here.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And the whole idea of, like, death trap, Lacan is really important for that whole kind of evolution of theory. So where are we feeling on Lacan these days?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So two things. So you're right, that the notion of split subject, that I completely have taken that from Lacan and totally invested in that. And also I think that when he says there's one drive, which is the death drive, that to me is, Is just such a huge theoretical leap forward. Because I think Freud, while he kind of thought that he still, he said, I'm always, I am and always remain a dualistic thinker. There's Eros and there's death drive. So I feel like Lacan clarified that, and I think he's really crucial for me in that way. But, I mean, I still, my investment in Lacan is in a particular period of his thinking. More than just the whole thing.

[B]

Before the knots, right?

[A]

Before the knots, for sure. Yeah. I just, I find that a little bit hard to bear. And I, I have friends that were at the seminars that said sometimes you would just, you know, not really say anything and just, and I, I just said, I don't know how you did that. I mean, that just seems incredible to me. But, yeah, so I, I, I mean, I'm, I, I'm not hostile in any way, but I guess I've always felt like, and maybe more so lately, that Freud. I just feel much more simpatico, fundamentally with Freud. And maybe it's personality less than doctrine. Just. I don't know. I mean, I probably wouldn't have been friends with Lacan. I think I would. This is so dumb, but I probably would. I hope that I would have been friends with Freud. I don't know. It's just, it's. I just, I. Look, to me, Lacan is a, like, the provocateur dimension is, to me, less interesting. And, and, and, and to me, that, like, the knot thing is wrapped up in that is, is part of that same thing. So I don't know. But, but yeah. And for, for. For the way that he thinks of drive. Drive. I think it's. He's absolutely irreplaceable for that move from my perspective.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

By singularizing it, like. I think that was the real, the real advance.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's. Well, you do mention. I was really. You mentioned your book here, which I loved. You go in, you know, to the, the details, and so. Because Freud, it was from Sabine Spiellein, right?

[A]

That's correct. Yes.

[B]

And you do. And you mentioned. You quote that article. Right. So she really, in this, this article that you quote. I used to. Really? Really. I mean, that's like the. It felt, it felt like going back. I'm romanticizing it. You know, you go back into. It's like, oh, the, the hidden gem. Right. The archaeologist, like Indiana Jones. That's the article. It's the Beast Spirit's article of destruction as a way of becoming, I believe. Is that called.

[A]

I think that's the title. Yeah.

[B]

And, and, and it's so amazing, that article, what she's, like, opening up to. And Freud was. He. He clearly had respect for her as a thinker.

[A]

Absolutely. Absolutely. Right, right. But he, he thought she was the. I Mean, right, because he put. There's a footnote to her. She's the. I mean, he does say she's the originator of this idea.

[B]

And then he struggled with it.

[A]

I know, I know. And he, I think he felt. I mean, it's 12. It's. What is it? Eight years after she wrote that article, right before he puts it in a book. So I think he couldn't just accept it. I think, I mean, because it's hard to accept, right. Like it's. And. But I do, like in the. In my more theoretical book that I'm working on right now, she has a much more central position just because I. I mean, I do. Because, you know, it's funny because I think you could see it either way, right. Like, in a way, I feel almost more proximate to her than to Freud on death drive because. Precisely because she's onto this way that. This creative dimension of it. But I guess my problem for her is that she sees for her the creative is the reproductive in that article, right? So for her motherhood of the example of death drive. Because it's the way that we sacrifice ourselves for the coming generation. So I guess for me it's more productive than reproductive. So that's where I'm a little distanced from her. But in other ways, I think maybe she and I have more in common than Freud and I are. Than Lacan and I. So. Yeah. Yeah, I really. I think you're right that it is this little hidden gem. And then her other writing doesn't really follow up on that. So it would have been. It would have been interesting. I mean, maybe because she didn't get like, no one incurred. You know how it is. You write something, no one likes it. And you don't tend not to write more things like that. So maybe that was it. I don't know. But yeah, I think clearly Freud had a lot of respect for her.

[B]

And so, Todd, now I'm gonna. I'm gonna upset you. I'm gonna. I'm gonna make you really upset. So that article in the, like first page, she's quoting Jung.

[A]

I know, I know. You're not gonna make me upset. No, I know.

[B]

So what are you gonna like? Well, I mean, because I know you're beef with Jung.

[A]

No, I know I have a big beef with him, but I mean, who's a dualist? I think. And I think she remains.

[B]

Is he, Is he? I don't think he is. I mean, I don't know, because he, he, he. He really talks about the interconnectedness of it. Like, it. It's. You can't have one without the other.

[A]

Right, I know, I know, but they're still separate principles, aren't they?

[B]

Possibly. I mean, I'm also color here by just my experience, and I want to. I want to come out. I want to confess. I. I trained at the Young Institute.

[A]

Okay. Okay.

[B]

So maybe that, you know, we'll see if you'll want to come on the podcast.

[A]

No, I will always. No, no.

[B]

You know, I just want to say something. I just want to say that they. They Jungians. Like, we talk about complex and shadow. And I have not met a Jungian who would say that you can fix your complex. Like, they would all say. No, no, no. You don't ever get rid of your complex. Never. You don't ever get rid of it. You just have to learn to live with it.

[A]

Okay. I. I defer to you because I. Yeah, because I. I mean, I don't. I'm not enough of it. I mean, I've read, obviously, but I'm not enough of an expert, and I certainly haven't read the secondary literature at all. So. Yeah, I'll just defer to you on that. And I don't. I mean, yeah, I'm prepared to. Not to abandon my beef, so. But I mean, her situation's a little like. She was very close to Jung Right. Before.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, too close, probably.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. In the tricky ways. Yeah.

[A]

Yes, yes. Which Freud. I mean, I think that actually caused a little friction between Freud and Jung because Freud was like, maybe we shouldn't be sleeping with our patients. Right, Yeah.

[B]

I mean, there's certainly Jung's self sabotage there. Right, right.

[A]

Absolutely. Which is nicely depicted. Do you know the film by David Cronin?

[B]

Yes, I know, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

I mean, I would love to be played by Keira Knightley. So Sabina Spielrein really gets a. And that's a good. She gets a good representation.

[B]

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[B]

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[A]

Got a Sam's Cafe pizza. Order up. You know the best part about this spicy Italian sausage? I voted for this topping. Yeah, just. Just another perk of being a member. Come join us. Sam's Club.

[B]

Well, Todd, I mean, I could go on and on for sure. We could, you know, spend hours talking about this, but I want to respect your time. But I mean, as we're coming up here at the end, we usually talk about like next projects and what's going on, but like what? Todd, why have you hardly written any books?

[A]

I don't know what is my problem. I don't know what I'm doing. I just. It's. It's self sabotaging. I just keep, you know, fooling around, watching YouTube, watching clips from Pride and Prejudice and you know, I never have time to write.

[B]

So is. Is book writing your self sabotage?

[A]

It definitely is.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, it definitely is. In fact. Yeah. I mean I.

[B]

It.

[A]

It gets in the way of so much pleasure that I could otherwise be. I mean, when you said reading. I wouldn't read novels because I find novels are a little boring. But if I could just.

[B]

He's a professor, by the way.

[A]

Finding novel. I know, it's terrible. It's terrible. But I could. If I could sit like right now I'm reading. So I was. I'm reading a novel about. By Hilary Mantle and the French Revolution. A place of greater safety. I've Always meant to read it because it's a period I like and I'm a little bored by it. So I started reading, rereading a book for some students of mine are doing it by Gillian Rose called Hegel Contra sociology. And I'm just riveted by it. So if I could have a perfect summer, I'd just be reading books, you know, books on Hegel or books by Hegel or whatever. But I, but instead I, I'm like. And I even feel it. I say, oh, I probably should get to work on that chapter. I kind of have an idea for it. I should get. So I do feel like as I'm taking pleasure from something, the writing becomes. I even was asked to do this book by. I was gonna, I was gonna include this in the book, but Hillary made me take it out cause she thought it sounded too self aggrandizing. But I'm going to tell him now that I had a little note where I said even this book is an example of self sabotage because Polity asked. I was working, I had a nice other project I was doing and Paulity said maybe would you do this? And I'm like, I guess. I said okay, I guess I'll do it. So it's great. I mean, one final example. I was working on this more theoretical version of this book and, and I don't know how this happened today in this day and age, but I saved a version that was as far along as my earlier version. I saved it over top my version that I had just worked on. And so I lost all this stuff that I had done tons of research for that I couldn't reproduce because I had researched online and then just closed the documents after I put the quote in. And so it was all just lost. And I was so devastated. And I just said what a great thing to do in a book on death drive. Right, like that.

[B]

Very fitting.

[A]

Yeah. So anyway, so yeah, I. I mean, so yeah, writing is my. Which is. I know it sounds terrible. I mean I have other ones too. Like I eat a lot of food, that's bad for me and I, you

[B]

know, but, but I mean, what a good example of like that's the. The creation of the sublime. I mean all the. Anyone if you enjoy reading and look at your bookshelf, like when I just look at all my books here on my shelf, like so much suffering that has gone into, you know, all the books. And I get to enjoy these. And without these, I mean, life would be pretty empty, right, if we had no books, we had no one who had done that. So it's just a good example of.

[A]

Yeah, I think I really agree with that. I really agree that maybe there's never been a book written that didn't have that dimension to it. It. Right. And so.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Like think of Milton.

[B]

I mean, that's actually a thing you can sense of a book. You can sense there wasn't enough suffering that went to this book. It's not really good enough. Right.

[A]

Maybe. Right, right. No, I was. I think that's absolutely true. I was thinking of Milton. He's already blind and he's starting. He writes Paradise Lost. Right. Like that must have just been torture for him. Right. So, yeah, I think you're right that we like, they. There wasn't enough self Savage. There was enough pain. So I'll quote somebody that I don't necessarily love, but I think Nietzsche says of all that's written, I only love what's written in the blood. And I think that that was a. It's kind of a way of saying what you just said. Right. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that's. Yeah. Well, good place to land on a heavy. An intense Nietzsche quote for sure.

[A]

Yeah. Great.

[B]

Yeah. And so. And I don't know if this is reserved for your. For Ryan Engle on the YA Theory podcast, but. So what's the lesson?

[A]

The lesson is watch pride and fragile.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Absolute lesson. Yeah. Replay that first proposal scene again and again and again.

[B]

Okay. Sounds good. Sounds good. Okay. So. Yeah. Thank you so much, Obra.

[A]

Thanks, Helena. It was great.

[B]

Thank you for listening to this episode of the New Books Network. We are an academic podcast network with the mission of public education. If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend and rate us on your preferred podcast platform. You can browse all of our episodes on our website newbooksnetwork.com Connect with us on Instagram and BlueSky with the handle ewbooksnetwork, and subscribe to our weekly Substack newsletter at newbooksnetwork.substack.com to get episode recommendations straight to your inbox.

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

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