55: What is the Pleasure Principle? feat. Rebecca Ariel Porte

Ordinary Unhappiness

Abby and Patrick welcome scholar and literary critic Rebecca Ariel Porte of Dilettante Army and the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research to talk about the key Freudian concept of the pleasure principle. Starting with Freud’s 1911 essay, “Formulations Regarding Two Principles of Mental Functioning,” Rebecca, Abby, and Patrick probe the complicated question of what, exactly “pleasure” (German: Lust) means for Freud. At the end of the day, is “pleasure” simply the avoidance of pain, relative movement along a stimulus gradient, an object towards which we turn reflexively like sunflowers towards the sun, or something else? How does Freud’s notion of pleasure relate, on the one hand, to its apparent opposite, AKA “unpleasure” (German: Unlust), and to the “reality principle” on the other? What is the status and function of the different ways we imagine pleasure and find pleasure in imagining, from daydreams to fantasies to “hallucinatory satisfactions” in general? Plus: what Freud’s theories of pleasure miss and other analytic thinkers don’t (with reference to Heinz Kohut and Melanie Klein); the relationship between ego instincts and sexual instincts; flights into illness and the meanings of neurosis; and a reading of an incredibly Freudian sequence in Milton’s Paradise Lost!
Rebecca’s recent essay on Cixous is here: https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/helene-cixous-well-kept-ruins/
Her recent essay on Proust in translation is here: https://www.bookforum.com/print/2904/a-new-translation-of-proust-s-late-masterpiece-25166
The latest Dilettante Army is here: https://dilettantearmy.com/
Dilettante Army merch is here: https://store.dilettantearmy.com/
And her upcoming courses are available here: https://thebrooklyninstitute.com/current-courses/

Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! 484 775-0107
A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:
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Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music