"What we are dealing with is a particular type of ideology—an ideology of consumer capitalism that mandates enjoyment."
"There isn’t a pure, correct, or optimal object to enjoy—just that one ought to seek out and find pleasurable experiences… and this works perfectly with our society of advertising—where there is always a newer and shinier object promising pleasure—capitalism promotes and demands that we find happiness and that, most importantly, we enjoy that happiness.
Alfie Bown finds a ray of hope in a special kind of Lacanian enjoyment: Jouissance.
Jouissance is an irrational form of pleasure that borders on suffering —it is a sort of pleasure and pain wrapped in one. A sort of enjoyment that there’s no explanation for- Like watching The Room, picking at scabs, or playing Flappy Bird or any of the Dark Souls games.
With Jouissance there’s an opportunity, not to destroy our ideology that mandates enjoyment—but to reflect on the how unnatural our feelings of enjoyment are—that we aren’t beautiful individuals who are fighting the good fight against the corporate machine—that what we enjoy is predictable, sellable, and taught to us. That no matter how much people try not to be sell outs—they’re just sad hipster pseudo revolutionaries in Che t-shirts and Berets."
8-Bit Philosophy, where classic video games introduce famous thinkers, problems, and concepts with quotes, teachings, and more.
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