“Against Alienation” - Lara Sheehi and Stephen Sheehi on their book Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine
"In this conversation Lara & Stephen talk about the historical relationship between psychoanalysis and colonialism, and how power relations and epistemology structure those relations.
Upending those relations of course are anti-colonial or decolonial theories of psychoanalysis and in this context relationships forged between Palestinian clinicians and their Palestinian clients. Both are subjected to the same settler colonial apartheid regime that necessitates a national liberation struggle.
Along the way they talk about the different forms of every day and extreme oppression faced by Palestinian people, we talk about the work of Palestinian clinicians to confront that harm, and how confronting that requires transgressive acts, organization and ultimately resistance."
« Rien ne nous aliène à nous-mêmes et ne nous aliène le monde plus désastreusement que de passer notre vie, désormais presque constamment, en compagnie de ces être faussement intimes, de ces esclaves fantômes que nous faisons entrer dans notre salon d’une main engourdie par le sommeil – car l’alternance du sommeil et de la veille a cédé la place à l’alternance du sommeil et de la radio – pour écouter les émissions au cours desquelles, premiers fragments du monde que nous rencontrons, ils nous parlent, nous regardent, nous chantent des chansons, nous encouragent, nous consolent et, ne nous détendant ou nous stimulant, nous donnent le la d’une journée qui ne sera pas la nôtre. Rien ne rend l’auto-aliénation plus définitive que de continuer la journée sous l’égide de ces apparents amis : car ensuite, même si l’occasion se présente d’entrer en relation avec des personnes véritables, nous préférons rester en compagnie de nos portable chums, nos copains portatifs, puisque nous ne les ressentons plus comme des ersatz d’hommes mais comme de véritables amis ».
"L’aliénation du spectateur au profit de l’objet contemplé s’exprime ainsi : plus il contemple, moins il vit ; plus il accepte de se reconnaître dans les images dominantes du besoin, moins il comprend sa propre existence et son propre désir… C’est pourquoi le spectateur ne se sent chez lui nulle part, car le spectacle est partout."
Guy Debord, dans son livre "La société du spectacle" (1967)
"Le niveau de vie élevé dans le domaine des grandes corporations est restrictif dans un sens sociologique concret : les biens et services que les personnes achètent contrôlent leurs besoins et pétrifient leurs facultés. En échange des marchandises qui enrichissent leur vie, les personnes vendent non seulement leur travail mais aussi leur temps libre. L'amélioration de la qualité de vie est contrebalancée par un contrôle omniprésent de la vie. Les personnes vivent dans des concentrations d'appartements et possèdent des voitures privées avec lesquelles elles ne peuvent plus s'échapper dans un autre monde. Elles ont d'énormes réfrigérateurs remplis de produits surgelés. Elles ont des dizaines de journaux et de magazines qui épousent les mêmes idéaux. Elles ont d'innombrables choix, d'innombrables gadgets qui sont tous de la même sorte et qui les occupent et détournent leur attention de la vraie question - qui est la prise de conscience qu'ils pourraient à la fois travailler moins et déterminer leurs propres besoins et satisfactions".
― Herbert Marcuse, dans son livre "Eros et civilisation : Une enquête philosophique sur Freud"
When I was a kid, and even into adulthood, I wondered how people could live in places where, down the street (figuratively or literally), horrors were being committed. How could they get out of bed? How could they go to work? How could they go to birthday parties and social occasions, dancing and singing while thousands of innocent people were being killed not 100 kilometers away? Isn't this a horrible complicity that reflects a deep moral failure?
I was reminded of this recently, reading a review of The Zone of Interest, https://jacobin.com/2024/02/zone-of-interest-holocaust-film
And here I am, living in Jerusalem, teaching classes, sipping coffee with friends, going to see movies, while the siege on Gaza continues.
It isn't that I don't feel guilty. It isn't that I'm not in shock and grief about the images and stories I read every day. But I feel so helpless, and I am scared to speak my mind for seemingly no benefit and only great social cost, and at some point that sense of helplessness became psychological distancing.
I don't want to think this is cowardice, but I really don't know. Maybe it is. I wish I were stronger, I wish I felt like I could do something, but I don't.
I hope some day in the future I am able to articulate what this has been like to go through. For now I don't have the words, except to say that I'm sorry. I don't even know for what right now, but I'm sorry.
Well, gosh darn. The good ol' U S of A, rich nation with #capitalist health services, has worse health outcomes EVEN FOR RICH FOLKS not only than other rich nations with socialised health care, but also than much poorer #socialist nations. I wonder what the problem could possibly be?
@adamgreenfield I'm not sure you're right. #Capitalism is a consequence of individualism, which is a consequence of #alienation. Of course all western societies suffer from alienation to a degree but I think that the US is an outlier. Individualism drives the fear of other and thus the perceived need for the private ownership of guns and of over-large cars which are perceived as defensive. I'm not sure what you mean by 'fent', but if rent, that also is capitalism.
"#Tech companies hate you. Not individually – you’re an insignificant data point in a global #matrix of #profit. But they have dehumanised you, stolen and then sold your #attention back to you, destroyed the #social fabric and perverted the human need for #connection into an infrastructure of pure #alienation. This is what I think whenever I pick up my phone, which I can’t stop doing."
"l went to a cabin in the woods without my phone. Could I break its spell?"
🧵 1/8 It often exhausts me: 2 days of work to explain a natural phenomenon to highly intelligent people with a #nature#alienation. In the thread, I reveal my tricks for #biodiversity#activism.
The problem: A family #alienated from nature, the garden is super clean. But one is highly allergic against nearly everything. Knowledge from Google.
The fact: Every evening many #hornets come to their terrace. The fear: We will all die. And "maximum 3 stings are mortal for a man". Google: doom&gloom!
Holy-christ-on-a-stick. #Listening to the Northland candidates debate is like being one of the few people at the dance party who aren't tripping balls:
"... that's exactly why [Prosperity church] works. It works because it doesn't deliver on its promises. Just like gambling doesn't deliver on its promises.
It gets you addicted to the 'surplus enjoyment' of having a fantasy of what will overcome your alienation, and not giving you it. So that you can maintain a certain struggle in your life."
"... [Camus] says the conservatives, they're not happy until they get back to some golden age, and he says the revolutionaries aren't happy until they get to some utopia... then he said, but the rebel; the rebel is the one who enjoys the struggle itself, and who doesn't sacrifice people on the alter of the past or the future. But sees in the action of emancipatory struggle, liberation itself."