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

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Jun 1, 2024

Scholar and literary critic Rebecca Ariel Porte joins Abby and Patrick to delve into Freud's pleasure principle. They discuss the complexities of pleasure, its relation to pain and the reality principle, and its role in mental development. The conversation explores Freud's theories in depth, from pleasure and neurosis to the transition to the reality principle. Plus, a Freudian analysis of a sequence in Milton's Paradise Lost!

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Introduction

00:00 • 5min

Exploring Shared Reality and Cultivating Dissatisfaction Through Art

04:53 • 2min

Exploring Freud's Pleasure Principle

06:42 • 32min

Transitioning from Pleasure to Reality: Freud's Developmental Narrative

39:00 • 23min

Exploring Pleasure, Loss, and Neurosis as Survival

01:02:17 • 5min

The Evolution of Thinking and Action

01:07:39 • 9min

Evolution of the Pleasure Principle to the Reality Principle

01:16:37 • 31min

Exploring Youth, Merchandise, and Literary Endeavors

01:47:55 • 3min

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
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