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Red Library: A Political Education Podcast for Today's Left


Feb 25, 2019

On part 2 of my discussion with Comrade Alex on Lenin 2017, we delve even deeper into Zizek's work to explore freedom and enjoyment in neoliberal capitalism, authority and the radical Left along with more Lacanian ways to think about emancipation and Lenin's revolutionary legacy. 

By the end, I think you'll come away with some new and creative ways to think about Left political thinking and what exactly it would require to transcend the limitations of not repeating Lenin in the way Zizek describes. 

We talk a bit about Lacan's four discourses in this episode which can be a little tricky. Here is a bit more info to help out anyone unfamiliar with them:

Four discourses is a concept developed by French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. He argued that there were four fundamental types of discourse. He defined four discourses, which he called Master, University, Hysteric and Analyst, and suggested that these relate dynamically to one another[1].

  • Discourse of the University – Provision and worship of "objective" knowledge—usually in the unacknowledged service of some external master discourse.
  • Discourse of the Master – Struggle for mastery / domination / penetration. Based on Hegel's master–slave dialectic.
  • Discourse of the Hysteric – Symptoms embodying and revealing resistance to the prevailing master discourse.
  • Discourse of the Analyst – Deliberate subversion of the prevailing master discourse.

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