Group Psychology

[MUSIC] >> Hello, and thank you for joining us on another episode of Why Theory. As always, I am your host, Brian Engley. Join us always by co-host, Todd McGowan. Todd, how are you doing, buddy? >> Well, I am always good to talk to you. How are you doing today? >> Doing really well, and today we are talking about group psychology and analysis of the ego, a short book by Freud, either a short book or a long essay. I think he calls it a short book at some point in the text that I'm surprised we haven't talked about before. I think we've talked about aspects before in different episodes. The notion of the group, which I think we want to keep using, I think to be consistent, we want to probably keep using that word, but it's certainly like if you wanted to have what is Freud's theory of the social, it's in this idea of the group. It's also, if you wanted to think about, as I often like to try to do, what would be a psychoanalytic theory of a collective, like a politically active collective to lean on some Jean-Paul Sartre terminology, you have to move through some of the ideas that Freud sets out here. The take here, he writes this, I think you and I prefer when people write like it's a film noir rather than they write like it's a mystery, and some of this is like he does delay, like the big points for later in the text, but let's just start with the big takeaway, which is that the group formation for the subject, that is prior to individual identification. The idea is, it's kind of a, I don't know, it's not an astonishing leap, but it's just something that, like it'd be very easy to look at something like psychoanalysis, both the clinical method and both what Freud designates as how we should understand society to say like, oh, what psychoanalysis would say is you have to understand the individual psyche, and then once you understand the individual psyche, you can understand the group, but that is not the tack that he takes here. Instead, this is page 70 of the Norton reprint of the standard edition, he says, we must conclude that the psychology of groups is the oldest in human psychology, but we have isolated as individual psychology by neglecting all traces of the group, has only since come into prominence out of the old group psychology by a gradual process which may still perhaps be described as incomplete. So, that, what he's trying to tell us, what he works through really painstakingly in the book is that it's, we don't become, so not to get sort of like to head out of our skis, but he begins by talking about Gustav Lebon. Am I saying that right? Yes, Lebon. And his theory of, I think specifically it's the crowd, is that right? Is that his word? Yeah, I mean, the, so Freud uses the term, the primary term he uses here is that is translated as group as demassa, which could, obviously the R word for mass is in there, but I think group is the correct translation, and then, and Lebon is using a different word. So, yes, and which gets translated as crowd, so, so yeah, so, but, but nonetheless, Lebon is the first, he, he devotes a whole chapter to him, and he's a conservative theorist, basically a conservative critic of conformity, right? You can imagine, I think it's interesting because this book comes out just before being in time, and you can, I think you could imagine him even taking on Heidegger's condemnation of, of Dotsman or the day, right? That's kind of what he's doing through this figure of, of Lebon, right? Like that he's, he's giving the conservative critique of conformity, it's a due, I think. Yes. Yeah. Right. No, I think so too, I mean, I think so too, like, because, and then this other two McDougall who he talks about in the subsequent chapter, right? Another conservative figure, and what, what Freud wants to come combat is the idea, well, he really, the idea of mob mentality, right, and, and the idea that, like, people get into a crowd and they lose their heads, and, and they're like, that, that the, the crowd makes people do something that ordinarily they wouldn't do or think to do or think was, uh, was something appropriate, which is more, which is more, uh, Lebon's, uh, where, where he makes his hay on that side, and, and, and, and Freud wants to, wants to pierce that, and it, because if, to, just to make it very simple, it's like the, Freud does not think that a crowd or a group is a collection of individuals, that it's just that any, that, and not any collection of individual, I mean, he says this directly, uh, that, not any collection of individuals should be thought of as a group, um, and, but what's important to, like, to, to tease out, this is his interest in this, like, entire study, is how, uh, I'm going to use the word imprinted, how the group is imprinted on the psyche and how, uh, the group, it's the group that licenses the individual, not the individual that licenses the group, as is the case in, uh, Lebon, Lebon and in McDougall to, to different extents. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. And I think it's really important to see. So he thinks that there's a lot of things they get right, though, that, that it, it's important that they get right the way in which there's this communal experience, people are bonded together and they're bonded together in the relationship to the leader. And that the leader is a leader because the leader has a certain prestige, right? That's a term that's important to these conservative psychologists, sociologists, kind of figures. And that, that, that, that, that prestige gives the, the leader the power of suggestion. And so their idea is that groups are heavily suggestible, but they're, they're prone to be, to be, uh, victim to, to suggestibility. And, and what's interesting is that's the charge. And Freud must surely be aware of this. That's the charge often leveled at Freud that, yeah, psychoanalysis was just a kind of, uh, individual suggestion. So you say to the person, Oh, you suffered from whatever, uh, hysterical, blah, blah, because of this relationship to your parents. And then the person says, Oh, yeah, that's what I suffered from. And so that's because you brought it up, you make it, that, that's the thing, right? Because you have, and, and this is again, fit, Freud fits right in because you have a kind of prestige as the psychoanalyst for this person. Freud's point is, okay, fair enough, right, to, to, to label and, to go right fair enough, but. Okay, yeah, so prestige, suggestibility, that's fine, but where does the prestige come from? And yeah, why does the suggestibility work? Because right now, I think I have a certain kind of prestige relative to you. I think I knew relevant to me. And I could say, Ryan, I think today, actually, after we're done with the podcast, you should go and shoot yourself in the head. And, and, okay, if it was just all about the power of suggestion, that would work. But it's like it's not, you know that I'm kidding, but even if I was serious, it wouldn't work. It wouldn't work. Cara would stop you. But you would even think about doing it. You wouldn't give one thought to doing it. So Freud's point is, in order for suggestion to work, there has to be some libidinal role at work. And that's what he really adds to these other dudes, right? His point is, wait a minute, prestige, but why, okay, someone's in the position of a leadership of the group. That doesn't necessarily ipso facto give them prestige. For instance, former presidents of the University of Vermont, I won't mention any particular, but they had no prestige in the idea, in the eyes of any of the, not just me, but any of the faculty. There's none, yeah. And they have notes, they would write these emails suggesting something, they're suggestions and I know where. Because they're in prestige. So why is that? So clearly it's not just a given of the position of the leader, right? That's Freud's. It's a leader. Yeah, good. You know, if the leader could just do that, they could just effect through suggestion, whatever it was that they wanted. There would be no such, you know, if you follow Freud's idea, there'd be no such thing as a feckless leader. Right. There would just like, like all leaders would, all leaders would have the strength of any leader, like we would just would never be able to, to debate that just because of the exalted position, wherever they were, that, that would carry the force of whatever it is that they said. But there is clearly a difference between different leaders, like different, like certainly, certainly when Biden was president, the force of him, he did not have a lot of suggestive old power, did he? No. Not to get like student loans, you know, like to cut, cut out 30,000 for everybody, whatever it was, you know, like that didn't, certainly couldn't, didn't, did not have that. And that's, it's a, you know, also, I didn't want to trace back a little bit because this is important too. It's a little bit like the charge that, you know, that Freud is doing the suggesting, that's also the suggesting what the, the patient might have and then they just adopt it. Like, yes, of course, you're right because you don't want to adjust it. That's also a wild psychoanalysis, right? Right, right. And also the problem with that is, of course, and it comes back to the point you're making, why would the patient invest for himself in what the psychoanalyst says? That for Freud is the whole issue, right? That's the whole issue, because that's, of course, what Freud calls transference, this transference of your libidinal desire towards the analyst and that, so if you're suggestible, that already tells you a lot about what's going on psychically with the patient. So his, his, his response to the charge about, about that psychoanalysis is just suggestion was to say, wait a minute, you have to explain suggestion, you have to explain why suggestion works because to take one of Freud's arch enemies, Karl Popper, if Freud said to Karl Popper, you know what, you should go jump in a lake, Karl Popper is not going to do it, right? He's not going to do it. So it's not, suggestibility requires a certain, and it's not just position. And I think that's one of the key things about this book, right? It's not just the position of the leader, which is why Biden is feckless, and Trump is not, right? Trump is not, we have to say, Trump is not feckless. That's the problem. Yeah. It'd be nice. It'd be nice to see this fact be real. Yeah, it'd be really nice. Yeah. A lot of people still be in the country that aren't, that's the case. That's right. You know, that'd be, that'd be nice. The, the, the, so I want to just take this on position, because it's really important to, because why, like, you know, why are we talking about, you know, we're talking about this, because, you know, we like to go through the, for its papers, small and large. But also, like, there is something very relevant about this, both in, you know, politically speaking today, and also, I think within academia, and it's on this idea that, like, I will often hear, I'm sure you do too. The idea of positionality is, as a phrase, is tossed around a lot, as a, as explaining a lot of the, like, social dynamics, oftentimes, it's got brought into, like, power dynamics of any sort of group or have structures interact. It's that, like, what is your position relative to, to something else? Okay. What is, what's one's positionality? And so there's this idea, at least the way that I have seen it employed on campus hearing in a lot of different papers that, that I've looked at, is that, like, one's positionality limits one, that, like, your, you know, whatever your circumstances are, incline you towards seeing things, and hearing things a certain way, and then, whatever, again, position you might occupy, what, in what we would call the symbolic, that limits you to seeing how someone else's positionality might be, might be different, might be more encumbered and disadvantaged than yours. And so whatever opinion or idea that you might advance has to do with, again, it's reducible to your positionality. And I think if we were going to bring forward into that kind of conversation or this sort of idea, the problem is that in this idea, like, I think all of this is true, like, certainly, you know, Elon Musk's positionality on all raft of social ills certainly are anticipated by his upbringing and his roots, like, that's, like, that's, that's, it's pretty clear. He is, however, allowed to know better. And so that's sort of the thing that, at least, and I'm not saying this is an ironclad thing against this idea of positionality, but, like, I do think you're allowed to know better than whatever you were. Plus, you can, I mean, don't people act against their positionality all the time? All the time. And it does, and also it, it, it, it, it, it, it excises, it cuts out this idea of investment in, in, in one's positionality, meaning some count more than others. And again, it's, it's, that, that it can be wrong. But the idea, this would be the thing that, for it to be interested in, and this is the thing we're interested in, is why do some positions, like, count more, why does some have more, like, more investment, that, or encourage more investment in people than others. And even that same position held by a different person, why, like, you're giving the, the, the example of, like, a UVM president, what, what makes, what stokes a, a certain kind of texas, it uses psychoanalytic jargon, but investment would be the more regular terminology that, I think, you and I prefer, but, like, what stokes that, that, that investment, and, and, and why does it work? And so it's, it's getting at the, the, the, the nitty gritty of, of why certain structures are, are held together. And it's not just reducible to, like, to a game of chess, right, where, like, certain pieces are more powerful, right, or, or better positioned on the board, right, than, than someone else. The, you can't, and, and you were, you're a bad, you're a bad chess player, if, your, if you become overly invested in the King's Bishop, just for some reason, and, like, like, just, like, just, you're playing some game and, like, you're really, really invested in the King's Bishop, and it has no reason to do with positionality. It has, it has nothing to do with any of that, just, like, you're, just, like, in the peace itself. That's not how anyone should really be invested in the King's Bishop. Well, some people lose in chess because of their hyper-Cathexists, to be jargony, but their hyper-investment in the, the German term is Bizzetsen, Bizzetsen, or the verb is Bizzetsen. And there, there was a real straitchi, James Straitchi, the translator of Freud, had real no, no idea how to translate it. And so he used the term "Cathexists" and "Cathected." Our friend Anna Cornblou hates the term "investment" because- I know. Because it's very financial. She thinks it's too financial, yeah, so we all, we'll just have to include an official apology to her and keep on, keep on using it. But there's a hyper-investment, I mean, another term you could use is "occupy," but that, it's hard to make that make sense in every sentence. So I think it doesn't, and I think that's actually the probably the most literal translation. So it'd be like something like a hyper-occupation of a sort of position, right? Maybe? It's not really the way we use the word occupancy. Yeah, it's not that that's the problem. So that's the problem. Anyway. Yeah, I think it's- Are you occupying? Anyway. I'm just going to, yeah, it's a very, it's a pedantic point. But I think that the Freud's point is about the way identification functions in the group, right? It's really fascinating, and he thinks that these conservative figures have put too much of their weight on the horizontal identification and the power of that over people. The way conformity works, right? That's a classic. It's interesting, I think, that conservatives tend, and Rand is very critical of conformity, right, egg, or obviously, Nietzsche, obviously, Kierkegaard, these are all conservative thinkers. You don't see Marx really critical of conformity. It's, it's, it's, it's certain, it's just fascinating. So, but Freud accepts this critique of conformity from these right-wing thinkers. But then two things. He says, well, the identification has to work in two directions, right? There has to be, it has to be both horizontal and vertical, and, and the thing that bonds you, this is the thing that I find so fascinating, right? That the thing that bonds you horizontally is the shared vertical identification. Yeah. And what you do as a member of a group is you take the same collectively in the figure of the leader, the same object as your ego ideal, your ideal. But that, that, that ego ideal takes the place for you of your own ego, he thinks. So, so that you, as, when you're part of the group, and that's why your, your own concerns are a bit abated when you're in the group. You're not so, you can give up your own, I don't know, it's, you'd rather be whatever, having sex, watching television, but you're part of the group, so you go ahead and go to the, go to the, go to the lynching instead. Right. We can just, sorry, I'm sure. It's the crazy example. No, but it's, yeah. Yeah, I think it's actually a good example, but, but the point is, because your ego is basically disappears beneath the ego, this is Freud's theory, beneath the ego ideal that the leader provides, and the ego ideal for Freud, just for real, I don't know, is all the time, is what looks at you and says, you are good or you are bad, right? And so that's, so very, can we, yeah, go ahead. Yeah. So, what's the, so there's the, the ego, look, do this quickly. He talks about this a lot in this book, right, the ego and ego ideal. So, the ego would be, and that, the literal translation of that in English would be I. So, the ego is, right, it's the, like, I should make up that clear for Freud. That's, that's the, the eye, right? But yeah, ego is how it's translated. So when you, when you, whenever you say, I, that's the, that's the ego talking, right? Like, you say, like, I, like, I think I do whatever, like, that's the, that's, that's the ego speaking. That's the, that's the speaking ego. It's not, as it often gets translated properly, like, oh, someone has a big ego, like, it's a, that's not, that, that would be in this parlance, like, that's just, and that's nonsense. Right. And, like, someone can think more of themselves relative to the group. They can, they can think they're more important. They could be more, more invested than themselves and that, they could be more selfish, but the idea of having, like, a big ego versus someone who, who has no ego would be like, could you imagine never, I mean, you just have to have to be this thing. We, we, we'd have to be in a society where some people spoke and they never used the eye person. Right. Something weird. Yeah. Yeah. And other people did. A lot of things. So that, so everyone has an ego, it's like, it's, it's, it's not, it's not like that. So when you say, I, that's your, that's your ego speaking. And then the ego ideal, I like how you put it, the thing that looks at you, it's, the ego ideal is outside of you. And well, it's within your psyche, but it's, right, it's in a, it's embodied in a figure outside. Right. Yeah. It's in, in the McCain, the McCain in terms, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, right. So anyway, yeah, sorry, you were, no, that, that's all I was saying. And then I, I think that they have you, because you have that shared ego ideal, you've, that bonds you, and this is Freud's point in his corrective to these other, these conservative critics of conformity, that it bonds you together with the people in the group, labidinally. Because, so that, I think is a really crucial thing that it's, it's sexual or a libidinal that the group bond. And I think this, no one thinks this, he thinks about conformity, right? They don't think that it's a sexual, libidinal attachment that you have both to the fellow members of the group and, to the leader and, and it's through the leader that you have the attachment, libidinally, to the other members of the group, right? So that's the, that's Freud's point that, that without that libidinal, sexual, erotic connection, yes, there would not be a group bond. And I think that's really, really, it's so important for the way that we think about groups and what drives them and what holds them together and why some groups manage to be held together and other groups don't hold together, well, at all. And I think it's because they lack that libidinal component that the other group so clearly have and, and, and they get it through the figure of the ego ideal, the leader as ego ideal. Yeah. So I want to spend a lot of time talking about this because I think it's really important. And, and, and it's at, it's at the, it's at the heart of this. So this is what's missed and this is why I brought up like, I think maybe positionality is the way that, and, and any of this stuff is most talked about in academia today. Like, so, and I think that it misses exactly this like erotic dimension, like those things would, you just don't talk, we just wouldn't talk about them together. Yeah. Why would some other thing? Right. Yeah. And, and so here's, here's, I mean, we're not having sex in the group. What are they talking about? Yeah. Yeah. Right. We're not talking about group sex. It's not an orgy. So why would you talk about sex? But the, the two, the three does use the word orgy in this book. So he does. Yeah. Yeah. Um, which we'll get. Yeah. Which we'll get to. Yeah. No, I just, I always think, because I just think it's the funny, it's one of the funniest things that ever happened in Hollywood. I just, I always think of that, that story of, um, uh, Adam Weston, Bert Ward showing up to that orgy somewhere in the Hollywood Hills, still dressed as Batman and Robin from the 60s TV show and they stayed in character and were thrown out. I just think it's like the funniest thing that didn't happen. That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, because it, it's actually kind of funny. One of the, I can't believe this is how I'm going to introduce this point. But one of the, one of Freud's great points is that the couple destroys the group. And if you think about Batman and Robin as a couple in that example, it very much destroyed the orgy. We're going to come back to that and take it, take it a little bit more seriously because that's a very important point. But anyway, just this, uh, this erotic, uh, of the group, um, so I was teaching a class on the romantic comedy this semester and one of the students, um, had, we had like a semester long conversation about he, he, he thought that, uh, romantic comedy is too often pit friendship against, uh, romantic relationship. And like, when Harry Metzali is the great, I think, uh, offender of this, like, this student liked that movie a lot, but like, thought that this, this, that film was the avatar of this, men and women can't be friends because the sex thing gets in the way. And so that's, that's the line from when Harry Metzali. And, uh, so he, he thought there's a lot, he, like, um, in all kinds of romcoms, you know, like straight romcoms, queer romcoms, like romcoms, premised on, uh, on, on monogamy or non monogamy or whatever that, like too, like too often in the genre, it's endemic to the genre as such that friendship is pit against, uh, romance. And we were having this conversation at the, uh, when the class ended and I suggested to him, I said, so would you, would you say, cause I just, I hadn't thought about it. I wouldn't have thought this was, it wasn't for him and, and for him, like, bringing this up, um, throughout the course. And I think this is true, that it's actually, I think it's actually the case that you're, what holds your friend group together, is that somewhere you, you, you would have sex with everybody. That's what I, that's what I, that's what the student thought and I, and I, I, and I agree with this. You would have, well, you would have sex with everyone that you're friends with somewhere, like some, somewhere, and, and I think that would be the Freudian point is that it's actually, it's, that's what it's actually bound by. Well, in most cases, which cannot, cannot, cannot be spoken, right? Just to be clear. Of course. Right. Yeah. Of course. Because it's unconscious. That part of the bond is unconscious. And so it's just unconscious. If it was spoken, it would destroy the relation, just to be clear about that because otherwise it sounds like there are, sit around ready to go at it. But no, to go at, yeah, or like the, the friends on friends who were so tired of being friends that they fuck. Yeah. Right. Let's think about nodding Hill, right, which is, I think, the masterpiece of the genre, because, in a certain way, the friend group gets him together with her. They're pushing it. Yeah. But, but, but I think it does confirm the thesis because there's this interesting moment where she first comes over to the, to the dinner, Julia Roberts to the dinner that Hugh Grant is having. She's Anna Scott and he's, I forget his name. What is his name? Will, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And, and it's, the dinner is great. Everybody likes her and she's, she's funny and, and, and then they walk out the door. Do you remember what happens? They walk out the door and then behind the here, the, the camera stays outside with them. And then within, all you hear this gaggle of laughter, right? So, isn't the point that the group bonds over, in a way, now Will is excluded from the group, right? Because he's, he's coupled off in a way, right? Yeah. So, no. Yeah, I think it's a very interesting, that film is really, I mean, in a, in other ways, that's not the case because there's another couple in the group and they, they, they, they do their best to welcome her in and they are the ones that push him to go, they help him go find her at the end of the, when they finally come back up. So, I hope I'm not running that film for anyone, but every movie had a comedy ends that way. Um, so, yeah, so I think it's a, I think there is, there is that, and Freud's really insistent on it, right? Freud's really insistent that the, I always think of 1984. Why does Big Brother need to have Winston say, show Julia the rats? Right? Yeah. Why does he? Yeah. I don't love 1984, but I love that part of it. Why does, why is there that, why do they need the betrayal of the lover? And isn't it, isn't, isn't this? It's because the love for the lover is love not given to the group and not direct to Big Brother, right? And Tom Agamon, what's the, what's the last line of that book that everybody forgets? I've forgotten it too. So, you tell me. He loved Big Brother. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and like the, and, you know, I wrote about this in a, a, an essay that is collected in a, in a, in a book, you and Cindy's, I co-edited, uh, called Love and Philosophy, that this was my point about surveillance is that like, there's a, there's, there's love involved in surveillance, which this doesn't get talked about. It's, um, anyway, I'm not going to rehash that, the, the, um, what I said there, but they, they're, there's a, there's an erotic to this, there's an erotic to, to, to surveillance. Well, it is, don't you think it's interesting that there are more, I mean, we're talking about the Romana comedy right now, but there's a lot more films about, and even a lot of action films are about this, couples hooking up. Um, then there are about the dangers, and there are, a lot of them are about groups that are, I don't know, sports films about groups that do good things, but there's not really films about that many films about the dangers of conformity, group conformity around a leader figure, right? There's group conform, invasion of body snatchers, the group, there's a great argument to be had, which is the, is it 56 or 78 is the great version, I think 78, but, um, yeah, any, either one, incredible, but there's a leader, right? The group doesn't have a leader as far as we know. I think the only, isn't the only exception the teen film, right? Like, is it, does it mean, is it mean girls perfect? Because it shows that there's, it's not even love, it's love and hate for the, for Regina George, right, right, which is, which is an erotic, which is Catexus either way, right? Exactly. Like the ambivalence of love and hate for Freud, what a, incredible cast, and really, I mean, when, when it turns out of the, of the four main stars, Lindsay Lowe, and will be the have the worst career, that's pretty good, I think, right? Like, yeah, yeah, there's some great Rachel McAdams, played Regina George, and Amanda Seafreed, played Karen, whatever her name is, uh, but isn't it, I think that film does. My favorite hallmark star, but I've done that too much. That's, that's for Christmas. Okay. We'll talk about it. Okay. Yeah. Lindsay Lowe, it has turned into a big Christmas. That's right. She's done it too. We might have to do a whole Lindsay Lowe, except they're all terrible, really, so. No, I, I think that's, uh, you're, you're, listen, I know aesthetically in, in, in, in a way, that's correct. But I'm wrong, but, but we'll, but we'll get to it. We'll, yeah. Okay. All right. The Lindsay Lowe Christmas is coming. Yeah. Sure people can't wait for that. I can't wait for that. Yeah. That's not a real prediction or promise. No, it's not, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a fake, um, yeah. But I think it's, don't, what do you make of that? Why aren't there more films about, because it seems like such a common phenomenon that we exist, it's like, why aren't there films about, you could say them in their way. Why aren't there films about fascism? Because isn't that what Floyd is really on about? Well, yes. Yeah. So there's a good, good place to point this. For, for his idea, if we had to put it in a sentence and there's a, and the few things I want to, uh, tie back into this and if I could bring up a lacy shabar movie to do it, then that would make me happy. But I'm not sure I can. Okay. I can, I can, I can do that. Because if you had to distill it, you had to say like, what is the, the power American phrase of basically, like Fred basically says that it authoritarianism is a priori more sense making to the psyche than, than, just, than a society of, of equals is, and it's more libidinally appealing. Right. And it's more libidin, more libidinally appealing and, and, and clarifying. Yeah. It's a, to have, to have like an erotic investment in the leader. And so this, I wanted to give this example a little before we got on the, um, the romantic comedy track. But in this, you need to be said side by side is that I'll often see, like on Reddit or on Twitter or even, you know, uh, blue sky or whatever, the people will post. So, uh, people on anywhere left of, uh, mid Romney will, we'll post a picture of some MAGA conservative posting an AI generated image of Trump with, who, and he's like ripped, like, Dwayne the rock johns, but it's like, but it's like Trump's head and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's usually some, it's either, it's either some, uh, guy who is styling himself as, uh, fiercely had resexual who's posting this or someone who wants to position themselves as like a tradwife or something like that. And, and people are just like me, like this guy is a, is a sloppy mess, a, clearly wears a diaper because he can't control his bowel. Like, we've seen it. It's in all these different things. What is, what is the deal with, with, uh, people making him out? Like, he's just like, hunk of the month kind of, uh, kind of thing. And it's because there, there, it says Freud explains here is that there, there has to be this like this, this erotics, this erotic tie to, to the leader. And the, the fascist leader has the, like, they've, they've got the erotic tie that, that's a huge part of it that, that always gets discounted. And we talked about this a million years ago when we did an episode titled Zaddy Fascism that, like, the, the leader has to have the, the fascistic leader has to have this, like, this, this, this erotics about them that people get invested in. And it's also the thing, it's, it's, it's also on that, and I think Mussolini is maybe the best example. Well, Mussolini was already in power when Freud wrote this. So that's kind of interesting that you, you mentioned it. Yeah. So, and, and his, I think his downfall is exact, is predicted in, like, the way that it would go. Is that like, there, there has to be, if we're going to, if you're going to put these like two halves of this conversation, like the last ten minutes together, like, if there's a, if there is this erotically charged relationship with the fascistic leader, then there will be an erotically charged breakup. And it would be like, what happened to Mussolini? I think like that's, that's within what, what Freud is talking about. So the, the, now does that, does that change everything? Like, the act by itself, like, I don't know, I mean, I don't think that's exactly what happened in, in Italy, but it did move it toward a different direction. Though now, what is it? Maloney is the first, the president, prime minister, not to renounce Mussolini. So like, whatever, that's, that we've come, we've swung, swung way back around. Yeah. And Italy, but, but that, but this is the, the, the, the point here is to extract from Freud, like, when, when we look at these, these movements, when we look at Maga and like, where it's easy to, to scream like mob mentality or like that, like, there's like, there's a fever, right? Like, this was the, this is written about a lot of different places. This was the, uh, Joe Biden, like, mainstream, like liberal take on the Maga movement, which is that it was a fever that needed to break. And that four years of, of, of Biden normality would break that fever. I don't think that happened. Didn't happen. And, and part of it is that because it, there was no, there's no accounting for the, that bond is through this like erotic fixation that doesn't literally have anything to do with the leader, like, himself, like that erotic fixation to Trump is like, it is a fantasy. It's not about him. It's, it's not about how he actually physically looks. This is what, like, it drives people, I know, there's just like, what, the, the drives people crazy. It's like, it's, it's like, no, like, there's a fantasy around him that, of course, we know is, is a fantasy, and it's made up, but it is, it is made up. It's invested in by the group to then withdraw. And that's what supports him as an individual. It's why, um, this is a total separate conversation. It's, um, I know they're, they're these, they're these, uh, things that, um, you know, like Peter Thiel in his relationship with JD Vance, like this whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, so some of the, some of the things that's out there that, like, that for Thiel Vance is the, like, is the prize because he thinks, like, eventually, what he hopes is that all the problems that Trump will, will, will rot will just be tied up with Trump and eventually he can be dispensed with and then somebody who knows what, what the plan is and takes orders, like directly from the, you know, the crypto bros and whatever for the, like that person will be a lot more useful and that's Vance and that's how he's positioning it. And what it completely cuts out is, it's exactly this erotic dimension. Right. I think that's a great point. Don't you think? Because I was talking to Slavoy and he said, I, I fear more Vance than I do Trump. And I see the point, but I think I, I find it hard to imagine a libidinal attachment to JD Vance, whereas it's not hard to imagine the one to Trump because it exists so powerfully. And I think in part because I think this is a really crucial, so, so Freud links that libidinal attachment to the leader to back to his theory, and this is a theory he developed first in Totem and Taboo in the final chapter of that, that book about this, this, this thing called the Primal Horde, which was governed by what he called the Primal Father. And he thought that the Primal Father, jealously guarded all women, it's just a, it's a crazy theory. It's a, it's a, it's a myth that he develops. Yes. But that he jealously guarded all women for himself and, and no, none of the sons were allowed to, to have any, they had no, they had, they could have no one, right? And so the idea is that every group, Freud's, he believes every group in a way returns us to the situation of the Primal Horde, which allows the leader to be exceptional, right? So all of, and that's why I think what you said about Trump is really important. So all of his sins are just evidence of his exceptional status, whereas I think Vance is constantly showing us he does not have an exceptional status. He's just one of us. He's just one of the guys, one of the tech guys, right? And even Todd, I would think, if, if, if, I'm sorry to interrupt, but don't you think if Vance was in, if Vance did any, like any of this tariff stuff, this is just what I think would happen is if, let's just say Trump dies tomorrow, you know, the, and, and Vance continues all this, like, let's say he does all this stuff with the tariff, like whatever it is, and, you know, more, like, like American citizens are being, like, you know, deported for, like, made up reasons, and the, everything is more expensive. All of this stuff, you know what, Mag is going to say, Trump would never have done this. Right, right, right, I know, right. That's going to happen. Because it's made up, obviously, it's just, it's made up, but anything, anything, that's the investment in him, exactly in this, in this fantasy, is anything that, like, if Vance continued the plan, he did, if he did exactly, it's just, it's like exactly what Trump is doing or would do, but it affected Mag, they would say, no, that's not right, Trump would never have wanted this. He would never have done that. He's absolutely correct. It's absolutely correct. And I think that the, the, it was funny because as you were describing, you even mentioned that diaper, and I was thinking, yeah, that's humiliating in one sense, but in an, if you think about him as this primal father, who's not subject to any restriction at all, that's Raj's point, then it's kind of fits nicely, right, because it's the point, isn't it? Like, you don't have to, you don't have to control your values, that thing, whatever you want. I mean, that's the beauty of childhood. I don't know if you remember, you have that kid, so you obviously don't remember yourself, but no, no, no, but with your kids are a little, they just, they don't have any, they just let it go whenever it's fine. I was once changing the, and he, he had just peed, and then he just had to, he had to take a dump right in, and I just, I didn't want it to go on the nice wooden table, so I just caught it right in my hand, just right out here. Oh, yeah, there you go. And he said, how could you do that? It's so disgusting. I said, when you have kids, that's the least of the disgusting things that you have to do. But I think it isn't that interesting now that he doesn't even have to worry about that fundamental social restriction, which is you can't just go when you want. - Don't shit yourself. - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, that's amazing. - That's amazing. - It's, yeah, it's, yeah, and it's, again, it's part of why, so like Joan, Joan Koppcheck, who we reference often, she has this line, I think I've maybe even referenced it a few weeks ago, she has this line, or, I don't know, it doesn't matter if I did it or didn't, in Read My Desire about Reagan, that is, just as, is prescient about, and important to think about with Trump is that, she says that people, the people didn't love Reagan for the gifts he brought them. They love Reagan because he was Reagan. And it's the, it's the same dynamic at work here. - Right. - With Trump is that, again, left of Mitt Romney, everyone's trying to figure out what is the transactional thing? What it, like, again, even if it's, and even if it's the, even if it's on the basis of racism, or bigotry, like, there's some transaction that is happening that Trump is giving people, that's what everyone tries to do. - Everyone wants to say that, right. - To some kind of transaction, but it's, and that what they think is, if people just saw how faulty and false the transaction is, it would break the fever. But that's not how, that's not a transaction or fantasy. - Yes, it's not, I mean, that's Freud's amazing point. Isn't it, that a group is not a transactional entity? - Yes. - It's an entity of love. And that's why the couple, is it, I love the Batman Robin thing, man, that's gonna stick with me forever. Maybe I'll have to remember that, 'cause if I ever happened to accidentally go to an orgy, I want to be thrown out, so I'll make sure I go in a Batman and Robin outfit. - That's good. - I think that that's, it's such a fascinating point, right? That you cannot break the fever by showing the transactional nature, by showing you're not getting a good end of the, all those things are part of the fever. The bad exchange, in a way, it's not a bad exchange because you're getting love. And that's what they, that's what you're, that's what you join the group for. You join it for love from that ego ideal, figure primal father figure. And I think it's really, to me, I don't look, obviously no one, not enough people read Freud, and no one, and left us especially because they're suspicious of him, 'cause he was conservative. And I think that, but it's interesting to me that in this book, he starts out with a conservative critique of conformity and then twists it in a way that I think is pretty radical. Although he does have, we should talk about, 'cause he's very, as Freud always is, he's very critical of the church and religion. And the way religion functions. He gives two main examples, what he calls artificial group. One is the army, the other is the church. And his point is that in each case, you can have love for each other within the group and love for the head of the group, Christ or the general. But it has to include hatred for everybody outside. And his point, and then he makes this point about socialism, right, he says, okay, if we ever get rid of religion, like I hope we will, some other religion was probably gonna take its place, like it seems like socialism is doing, and then they're gonna have the same hatred for everyone that doesn't fit in. And so I think there's, to be clear, that's what Todd means for Freud being conservative, in that sense. - Yes. - So that's important. - Yeah. - Not in the sense of the current concern. - No, my God, no, no, no, no, no, no. He just was not sanguine about a socialist solution to our problems. - That's a lot. - Because he thought, and I think this is, it's in this, you know, the, there's probably, I think we went through it like before that we started. There's like five main, if you were looking for like, where is Freud a theorist of the social, and how the social interacts with the, and how the social is imbricated and emerges like, it's relationship with, sorry, where it's viewable that the individual emerges out of this prior relationship with the social, that we were talking about this, that it's this book, it is a service, certainly, civilization is discontinuous, and then sort of like to the modes of monotheism, theism, totem and taboo for like ancient, like, or archaic groups, formations, and then we would, we would be on the side of saying, beyond the pleasure principle is the, that's a, that's a social theory in that book, and then I kind of a little bit think jokes, but that's debatable, jokes in relation to the unconscious. But so, he thinks, I mean, if you look at these, the reason why he began socialism is, because he just thinks the social is a problem to the individual. That's, and that's, that's the, he thinks we talked about this. - End of the story, right? There's no getting around that problem, right? That, and the social is a violence to the, to the individuals like you. - It's, it's clear since civilization is discontent, so there's a fundamental antagonism between the individual and the social order, end of story, right? And that, and there's no utopia that's going to escape that, and that's, I think you're right, that informs his critique of, of socialism here, and he's written this, it's written in 21, so Lenin's still in power, Stalin hasn't even come to power yet, but he, it's almost like he's predicting what Stalinism would become, I think. - Yeah, and, and I, and I also, and you want to talk about anticipating, 'cause he, he couldn't have predicted this, but I think the way, the way that he writes about the artificial groups of the, of the church, and the military, it's the fusion of that, that is the contemporary MAGA movement. - Yeah, like, like, like, you, you just, you just said it, it's this, like, again, it's this, there's a little bit of an old investment, and a leader who's this figure of exception, and the forges this, the bond of the, of the group, against some external other who cannot be included in the group. That's what, what motivates us. - Yeah, and then the other, the other way that this book is really, really critical of, let's just say us, I think, is that, he wants to say that, and Joan Copic has a whole chapter about this, and imagine there's no woman. It's a great chapter. He wants to say that-- - Did you cover that whole book sometimes? - Yeah, we should say, and that's, you know, he wants to say that, that, that, that, that, that, demand for equality has its roots in envy, right? And so it's a very, it's a hard thing for a lover of Robosphere and the French Revolution, to hear because I think it certainly makes a good point that, that envy has a role within a lot of egalitarian kind of thinking, and you, I think you have to, if you're, I really believe in egalitarianism, so contravery on that issue. But I think it does have to be purged from that, from that, that envy dimension that I think often, often colors it, so I think that's one of the challenges that this book, in addition to this need for the enemy, 'cause I think that's another thing that, not just Stalinism, but I think there's a constant sense of we need an enemy, right? To even, even if you're on the left, and I think, so I think his attack on that, and then also this, this way that envy gets, gets brought into the egalitarian creature of that struggle. And there are, envy plays a central role in the egalitarian struggle as such, and I think, yeah, so I think that that's a challenge that he points out. - Yeah, no, I, no, I agree. I mean, I think that, well, doesn't his, so let's, I wanna move, we're not gonna end right now, but I wanna move toward this, like, final part of this, of this discussion, and kind of with and against, maybe, like Freud to try to take a formation that he does think is, that's at least threatening toward authoritarianism, and puzzle out of maybe this could be the basis of, of a group, of a group as such, which is the couple, and we talked about that, and I gave the joke thing about the, you know, Bert Warden, Adam West, but like, the couple is a threat to the group. You can talk about it in something as simple as, you know, in the high school sitcom, right? Or in the, this happens, I don't think in the teen film, so much as this happens in, like, the teen TV show, like, you're saved by the bell, your boy meets world, like, your thing, things like this, although they started in middle school, but anyway, it's like, when there's a, like a heterosexual coupling, usually, it's, or like, there's a coupling that it is damaging to the group as such, that, you know, this is, and this is the, I believe this is even expressed in a friend, is it a friend's episode or something? No, it's something else, I'm forgetting, that you're the, when two people get together in a friend group, then you're not friends with those two people anymore, you're friends with the unit, the, the coupled unit, like, so that it's like, it's like, it's like, disastrous. So when they split, what do you do? Right, so some people get certain, it's just like dividing, you know, objects in a divorce, it's like, you know, right? So certain, certain friends go with certain, you know, and then maybe there's like one or two people who on the slire friends with, you know what I mean, 'cause it's not politically nice. So anyway, so that's, that would be, that's the, that's the banal example, but I think most people will have seen that in fiction or went through like, a real life version where two people got together and then divided a friend group 'cause they broke up, or just because they got together. Anyway, what, yeah. Any of those, any example there? Who are you gonna stay friends with when Hillary and I divorce? It's gonna be tough for you, Todd. Sorry. (laughing) - I'm too little. - Okay. (laughing) You have to understand that that was the funnier joke, right? Like, so that was why that's, that's, there's no, anyway. So the, the, if you understand, and even in that little, in that thing, right, okay? So that's, that's, then you understand, and it tests to the dynamic that Freud is delineating, which is that the couple can destroy the group. I will also not jokingly, and not for nothing, bring up. One of the big components of MAGA Wright, or especially among younger people, is the, the in cell thing. So it's all, again, it's almost a testing to the idea that like if you were in a couple, like you wouldn't be as invested in this fissistic thing. - Well, I don't think there's any question about that being true. - Yeah. - Right? - Yeah. - Right, I think that's right. Like they, that's who they're hooked up with. - Right. - They're hooked up with the, the phrasing, by the way. - I like that instead of, that's the way the kids talk. - No, no, no, no, no, but you're hooking up as having sex, but that's not what you mean when you're saying that. Like they're, - Yeah, I think that that, that is their, that is their love partner. - Yes. - Is the fissistic movement, yes, exactly. - Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. - That's nice, yeah. - So then the, and this, I do not mean in any way, like trivializing it, like the romantic comedy then here, which there aren't that many of, although I've heard really good things about nice Indian boy, have you heard about this movie? - No. - Okay, I haven't seen it, so I'm not gonna talk so much about it, but like it's, we were trying to, my class was trying to get like a screening at a Claremont College is, it's a queer romance, it's meant to be very good. So, but whatever, I'm not gonna talk about much about it, but it's notable because there aren't that many, and then there's a big one coming out soon, I'm forgetting the name of, but anyway, the, to not trivialize it, I think that there's a, there's a logic in the romantic comedy that is a tonic to authoritarianism and fascism, but it, it can, can you do it in a way where it's sustainable, where like does, like the, I think that you and I could both, very easily talk about how, like love and romantic satisfaction would, would, would kill this group, like it is actually the, it is actually the enemy of, - Right, but it came for my new group. - That's the question. - That's where I'm going. - Yeah, yeah. - Can, can that, can that form? Because, obviously. - I mean, I never found, you know, you know how, Che Guevara used to like to say that the revolutionary is driven by love, even when they're machine gunning down the, the enemy. - Yeah. - I don't know, I just, I could never really get with that. I just, I, because I don't, I don't, I mean, look, Freud would say no, right? Because the idea, I mean, this is exactly what he's attacking in the church, the Christian, I mean, Christianity, and what's interesting is that, that, Nazism's, and this I think is really germane to what we're talking about, that Nazism was suspicious of Christianity because it thought it was a precursor, and it couldn't be openly critical because there were too many Christians in Germany. But it was, the main Nazis were suspicious of Christianity because they thought it was a precursor of communist universality, and communism was their avowed enemy, right? They put, again, they put communist and concentration camps before, they put Jews and concentration camps. So, I think that that's, it's, don't you think that there is something in that, but I think the problem is that it does run into Freud's critique of, can you have that universal love without the enemy? - Yeah, right. Without Che Guevier, I'm gunning down the person while saying he's doing it out of love for them. I just don't know, I'm not anti-CHA, I just don't find that to be a nice expression of love, especially 'cause I probably would be the one and the other end of the bullet. - The other end of the, yeah. - Yeah, so I just, I, yeah, I don't know about that. I think you're kind of right, I think you're on the right track, but I think it's a really hard to, it's hard to create the same, and I guess the answer is it's never gonna be the same kind of libidinal tie. And the very looseness of the libidinal tie is the sign of its ethical status, right? I mean, I think that, you have to, you have to bite the bullet on that. That, that if it's an egalitarian tie, it's never gonna be as strong a bond as the, as the rightest one is, as the conservative one is. - Yeah, that's, no, I just think that's the way it is. - It's interesting. And I think that just like one thing, like a little bit, a scance of this is that, like you can also see, like, you know, so with the Nazis, like cutting off, like the Christianity in a certain way, like you can also see that like the, the reason why in our current era, why Christianity has to be fused to this, to the, to the military, almost, or like, - Well, I heard all-ternational, - All-ternational. - Which would be a militaristic way of thinking, like you can, because it cuts out the egalitarian dimension, that of course the Nazis were afraid of, like, you just, you can't, you can't have that. Which everyone points us out online, which is that like if Jesus did come back and he said the things he said in the Bible, that, you know, Trump would deport him, like that, that's just the way you- - Or have him shot. - Or have him shot. - It's interesting, or you wanna cross. I don't know. - Or I don't know. - Yeah. - That's a really good run. - I don't know if that's a fresh idea. - Yeah, I'd be too, too, too, to hack me. But I, isn't it true about every major religion, right? Like every major religion gets this ethnic O nationalist turn to undermine precisely its universalist dimension, right? Certainly with Islam, that's true, right? And certainly we're seeing in Israel with Judaism, that can work perfectly well. - Yeah. - Right, yeah. I think the mistake of excluding Buddhism from this critique, I don't wanna do that. - Oh, yeah, that's right. Which we will not do, we'll not do that again. - I will not do that again. Hinduism clear in India. So I think that the universalist dimension, I mean, maybe that's a way to respond to what Freud's saying, that there are versions of all these universalist religions that don't have that ethno-nationalist component to them, right? And maybe that they're less, they're both less inclusive and less dependent on hating the outsider. - I don't know, can the couple be universal, I guess is the question. - Yeah, can the couple be universal? I don't know. I mean, again, the couple is a couple because it's exclusive. - Yeah, that's true. - Right, and Freud is very insistent on that, right? He can't, I said, this is the one time he's the word orgy. You can't, a couple can't, sorry, I just gonna offend a lot of people, but a couple can't go to an orgy and still feel tender, romantic love for each other. Right, while they're at the, okay, they can come back to being a couple afterward. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - While they're at the orgy, they're in the, they're treating each other as just essential, it's essential love, for instance. And I think that's, that seems right to me, right? I mean, okay, they can come back and later return to what they had, but while you're at the orgy, otherwise, it would be too traumatic, right? - Yeah. - I think. - It's interesting. - So I don't think the couple can be. - So it's not that widened. - It can't be the end, it can't be the end then. It can't suggest that, no, it can't be the button. - It's too bad because, see, I think the answer is more on the other side, on the side of something like death drive, which interestingly, Freud never once uses the word, he's the word "trib" drive, quite a bit here, and I wanna turn to this question, but he never uses the word "totus" tree, which is his word for death drive. So, even though one year earlier, in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, he's invented the death drive. It does not appear here one time, so that's interesting. But, fascinating thing, in chapter nine, he brings up a term that comes from Frederick Nietzsche, although he's not crediting, he's not talking about in terms of Nietzsche here, but somebody else, that is the herd instinct, and he or he uses the word "instinct" except late in the chapter, he goes back and says, "Masson tree," so herd drive. So it's really interesting that he uses the term that Nietzsche uses, herd instinct and this other guy. But then he can't help but use his own terminology later as he's talking about it, that kind of funny. But it's also important, I think, that he rejects the notion of a herd instinct, right? - Yes. - That he just, so people would say for just recapitulating Nietzsche, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, he isn't. Although, this is one of the only books where he quotes, is he put him or does he have references in, I think. - I'll double check while you're. - He's referencing the uber bench, right? - He does, he does Nietzsche superman, he says that exactly, yeah. - Yeah, and he says it existed in the past, not in the future. - Right. - Nietzsche was wrong. - Yes, that's what he says. - But I think that that, but herd instinct is clearly associated with Nietzsche, even though Freud's not mentioning here. And I think it's, he wants to say that the herd instinct is just a reaction formation about this social feeling that's developed through the, through the group, that there's not a herd instinct, but instead it's a response to a certain kind of anxiety that we look to replace, there's a loss of the object and fear of being alone and you replace it with the figure of the leader, right? Like that's the, the leader is standing in for some lost object for Freud, as an ego ideal. - Yes. - And that's not a herd instinct. So it's pretty, I think it's pretty great as a critique of that concept. - I agree. It is interesting. So I think we were talking about this before, we didn't talk about it here. This is maybe the most interesting, treeb drop, just to, to, I agree with what you just said, okay, right? So in order to make a correct judgment upon the morals of groups is a page 15 of the Norton, in order to make correct judgment upon the morals of groups, one must take into consideration the fact that when individuals come together in a group, all their individual inhibitions fall away and all the cruel, brutal, destructive instincts, that is actually instinct, which lie dormant in individuals as relics of a primitive epoch are stirred up to find, and this is the translation, free gratification. Now, what is he, the word gratification is an interesting choice by Straitsci. And also Mark Sons does, in the new revised standard edition he keeps that translation also. So, but what's the word, what's the word choice? - So the word is, so free is right. So Brian, treeb, but freezing in, sorry, treeb, freezing in. So, which means drive, okay, gratification is fine, but drive satisfaction or something. So the word, so it should be free drive gratification. That's not, it just drops out. So it's interesting, even in the revised translation, it doesn't get translated right. So, treeb is a very important word for Freud. It's a very important word. You can't just drop that out. - Yeah, yeah, right. And it's funny because, and also in the, and I haven't read enough to, it's, I think it's good that there's a translation that, that treeb is translated as drive as it is in the new trend. But I think in the, just in the herd instinct chapter, he translates herd instinct as herd drive as Freud. - He kind of overused it. - Right. Yeah. - For Freud, it's instinct. It's just a crazy kind of, okay, right, correct it, but don't, you still got a trust when Freud uses the word instinct. - I just, it's kind of a crazy. - He's talking about somebody else's. - We need a revised revised, I think. Well, it is interesting. - The thing is, it's a little annoying, I just bought the whole revised, not with my own money, but it was the school's money. And it's a lot, that's why I didn't have my own money, 'cause I don't have that much of my own money. But the, the, the changes that he makes are all underlined. - Yeah. - Which is weird. And then if you read the forward, he says, Hillary's reading, Hillary's the summer, she's gonna read the entire revised interdition cover to cover. - That's a good, nice. - That's a good project. He says, when, when, when this edition replaces stretchy, all the underlining will be taken away. And I find that a little annoying. Plus, how do you know it's gonna replace stretchy? Maybe it won't, right? - It's good to be comfortable. - If I was a friend of his, I would say, yeah, when? - Yeah, I guess. - I would say when, don't say if. - I have the force of it, but no, but you're right. - But there's a great example of this not happening. Do you know that, Joan Stamball in the mid 90s re-translated being in time, had been trans, the hot Martin Heidegger's being in time, had been translated since 1962. But this guy, John McQuarrie and Edward Robinson, not Edward G. Robinson, but Edward Robinson. - Yeah, say. - We're back in the roaring '20s. - That's right. - That's right. No, no, no, that's not him. Little Caesar, roaring '20s, that was a terrible error. - I thought you were in time period. - That's why it was. - I was, but I know, I was trying to make the period fit, but yeah, he's not, unfortunately, he's not in that film. I should have said something about, he'll get double and dim the knees, or something. Anyway, yeah, it would have been easier fit. - Not one case of death-by-drain. You know? - It worked, it worked. - You found me with that whole thing. - That's pretty good, man. - Yeah, and so McCurray and Robinson's translation, Stamball's later translation of being in time was meant to replace it, and then it didn't, after a couple of years, people were said, well, I think the earlier ones better, and so now people still refer to them, McCurray and Robinson, as the standard translation. So, it really, it just shows, sometimes, we don't need a new translation, I think. - It's, yeah. - I do want to say, good, go ahead. - Yeah, go ahead. - You can say, I think it's good to, like, I think, more, when I had read the, like, I like the, the Beyond the Pleasure Principle, you know, it's good to have drive in there, where it is, but I do think it's a bit of a mess in this, with the herd instinct confusion, which maybe people listening don't, won't be caring so much about, and this seems kind of, pedantic, but it is crucial for the text, because he's talking about Nietzsche, and we're both forgetting the other person he's talking about. - I know, I can't remember. - I know, this other person's idea of herd instinct, and that's crucial for distinction with his idea, and in meshing, drive with herd, is, I think, a little dicey, for what he's trying to develop, theoretically, because it's this idea of, I think, it's better this, - Well, it loses the reference to Nietzsche for one thing, right? - For one, which is, yeah. - Which is a loss, for sure. And then it's also to not have this line about finding drive satisfaction, like that would be, that would be a gain to have had that, but he sticks with the, I haven't read the whole thing, so I don't know, I don't know where I'm at yet with it. - Yeah, okay. - But anyway, all right. - All right, so I just want to end on this thing, that this is my favorite absolute line that Freud ever wrote. So it's on page 91 of the Straitje Standard Edition. I don't know if it's changed. He says, "Anyone who considers sex void, "anyone who considers sex is something "mortifying and humiliating to human nature, "is that liberty to make use of the more gentile expressions, "eros, and erotic. "I might have done so myself from the first "and thus spared myself much opposition, "but I did not want to, "for I like to avoid concessions to faint-heartedness. "One could never tell where that road will lead one. "One gives way first in words, "and then little by little in substance two, "I cannot see any merit in being ashamed of sex." And I just love that. One could never tell where that road may lead one. One gives way first in words, and then little by little in substance two. I think it's just, it just speaks to me Freud, courage, I guess, to say, to know that he's saying things, he could put things in a nicer way, a more polite way, and then he would have more adherence, but he would prefer not to. - Yeah, now it's pretty good. I mean, and that's on 30, 31, for anyone who has the Norton edition. - That, I guess that's also where though he does, it's unfortunate, he backs up. We always go over this when we cover his things, like how much does he keep in mind the drive? And so this has been like last, like, 10, 12 minutes. And in this, it has a little bit of reference, but not what you would call development. And then he does kind of back away, as we've talked about it, you know, for I, I, gosh, what was it? Is it, it was an analysis, a terrible and internal, I can't remember where he lists, like remember this, we talked about it. He lists like four different descriptions of the drive, like he, because he's like trying to throw something against the wall to see what we'll stick with it. Like the destructive, like the, like a prior masochism, the destructive urge, aggressive, we know whatever, like he redefines it four times instead of like sticking to it. But I know, well, even here, don't you think it's odd that it's all, it's basically, he defines the group through arrows and libino and never through death drive. And this would be a really different book if it was structured on death drive. And that somehow death, he just didn't think this, but I think it is. 'Cause I think there's one drive that the group is actually sustained in some way by death drive. And that would be the real interesting challenge. Oh, I got it, I got it. I've got it, Tom and Galen. Good. This is the thing. Being in a couple makes it easier for you to see how the group, the destructive group is sustained by the drive. Oh, I think that's true. Okay. Yeah. And so then if that's the, then you have to, then whether you're in a relationship or not, you have to remember that and know that. And then that changes the way that you see the group. So it puts you in a different position. It helps explain something like MAGA in a way that demystifies it, that takes you away from constantly trying to like come up with the right formula of transaction that. Right, because it ceases to be your little bit and old partner. Yes. Yeah. Or your soul one. Yeah. Yeah. That would be what I would say. That's good. So the romantic comedy can save the world. That's what I wanted to make sure we could-- Yeah, so I think-- yeah, I think it's hard to say what the lesson is, but I think it has-- But I think because this is such an exploration of the negative group that it has to be-- Watch Mean Girls. Yeah, I think that's true. Totally. Yeah. Totally. I think Mean Girls is the text of this book. So I think that's correct. Over and out, Ryan. Over and out, Todd. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]