Jouissance

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Jouissance

Howdy, I’m Cam and I write quite a bit. This is now another place for me to write about any and all things that interest me, in a handy overtly-structured form.

Jouissance is one of those fancy French terms that is used untranslated for that extra oomph. It comes from psychoanalysis Jacques Lacan, who used the word to talk about:

the drive that compels humans to go beyond the pleasure principle

However, Lacan doesn’t find this all fun as he believed that there is a limit to how much pleasure one can feel. Going past the pleasure principle turns into pain, while still being pleasure at the same time. Jouissance! It also has a sexual undertone to it, but as long as this thing is public… hello mom and dad… I will probably steer away from that.

So every Friday I will dive deep into something(s) that gives me pleasure and pains me, as there is enough of both of those things to go around. I’ll go into things like:

  • cultural trends, books, movies/tv, you name it
  • weird things in history
  • writing and creativity
  • technological occurrences (most of which i understand, some of which i don’t)
  • architectural and urban planning
  • some social psychology, evolutionary communication and philosophy

(Plus some links on what caught my eye that week).

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