Announcing: Samsara Audio Yes, the world desperately needed another podcast, didn't it? In light of the recent chaos on Twitter involving the release of Substack's new Notes feature, I chose to accelerate my timeline for expanding Samsara Diagnostics into the realm of audio, specifically YouTube and Spotify. I' Matthew A. Stanley
"The Hunters in the Snow" by Bruegel the Elder The desire to desire: from Girard's mimesis to Lacan's fantasy Today we continue our ongoing series on the question of self-destructive behaviors in humans, and especially the role of fantasy, desire, and the ego play. Academics and lay theorists alike have been re-discovering Rene Girard lately. His theories have attracted attention for their shocking relevance to our modern lives in Matthew A. Stanley • Psychoanalysis
Photo by Ivy Barn / Unsplash Staging our own destruction: suicide and fantasy with Gladwell and Plath This essay continues our series on the emergence of self-destructive behaviors. Suicide and Fantasy In 1962, 44% of the people who killed themselves in England and Wales used the same method — inhaling the "town gas" flowing freely in the pipes inside their homes. This gas was a noxious Matthew A. Stanley • Psychoanalysis
The Therapeutist by Rene Magritte (1937) Willed ignorance - against knowledge theories of suffering This essay continues our series on the philosophical problem posed by the emergence of self-destructive behaviors in human beings. There seems to be two moments within the event of understanding. In the first moment, the knower apprehends the thing being known. However, this moment is followed by a second in Matthew A. Stanley • Philosophy
How are self-destructive behaviors even possible? How can a creature knowingly choose to wound itself? And, perhaps even more troubling, to find such enjoyment in their own demise? Matthew A. Stanley • Philosophy
Welcome to new subscribers! We've had a number of new subscribers join us over the past couple of weeks, so I'd like to take a moment to welcome you all by providing a brief orientation, and a recap of some recent content here at Samsara Diagnostics. 📎If you still haven& Matthew A. Stanley
