Access exclusive episodes https://www.patreon.com/plasticpills A Signifying Chain (or symbolic chain, or signifying web) is a structuralist concept developed by Jacques Lacan and others ("The Agency of the Letter"; https://amzn.to/4p6wx6l). Signifying chains structure discourses and we believe, explain the growing rift in conservative politics.…

Have a look at our exclusive content https://www.patreon.com/plasticpills The Pill Pod reads Daniel Kolitz' anthropology of the gooners in Harper's Magazine https://harpers.org/archive/2025/11/the-goon-squad-daniel-kolitz-porn-masturbation-loneliness/ and we find it's all connected man Other sources cited included Lacan Seminar X, Freud Beyond the …

Full Ad-free Lacan series: https://www.patreon.com/plasticpills We conclude our Lacan series with what Fink says is the desired end of Lacanian psychoanalysis. And, the ends of psychoanalysis coincide with some valuable insights for Lacan's theorizing beyond psychoanalysis. Works cited are Fink's Lacanian Subject (ch. 5; https://amzn.to/4qz1Fgx) an…

Richard Ledes, director of the films Adieu Lacan and V13, explains his process, namely, adapting French plays about psychoanalysis into English-language films. He connects the seduction of nascent fascism in 1913 Vienna to the present moment a century later. Find V13 on AppleTV, Prime Video Find Ledes' catalogue at https://www.richardledes.com/ Alw…

The Pill Pod looks at the structure of the perverts in Episode 5 of our series on Lacan. Find the other episodes at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpills Sources: Jacques Lacan - Seminar X, "The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious", Ecrits Bruce Fink - Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis…

The Pill Pod looks at the chatbot psychosis phenomenon and compares it to Lacan's clinical structure of psychosis. This is Episode 4 of our series on Lacan. Find the other episodes Ad-Free at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpills Sources: Jacques Lacan - Seminar III Bruce Fink - Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis "People Are Losing Lov…

1Dime joins Erik and Victor to discuss Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism. We cover the popularity of the book, the term, and then wonder whether left-populist electoral campaigns perform the same cathartic function as anti-capitalist TV shows. See more from 1Dime: https://www.youtube.com/@1Dimee All our public episodes are ad-free: https://www.patre…

We wanted to review some Lacan because everybody's still desiring, and Bruce Fink's Lacanian Subject (1995) is quite often touted as the best unofficial intro, and we can see why. Get this and all our eps at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpills This is the book: https://amzn.to/4oubPxQΑπό τον Plasticpills

In a recent interview with the New York Times Peter Thiel, one of the world's most powerful men, gave ample evidence that he should be institutionalized before he hurts anyone else. Link to the full interview https://youtu.be/vV7YgnPUxcU?si=qSLrUmKeEblb4jYS Find all our episodes ad-free at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpills…

Pill pod discuss the public media representations of Epstein and Gaza before a seamless transition into a discussion of Giorgio Agamben's concepts of 1) Sovereignty 2) Bare Life and 3) States of Exception. The FULL OMNIBUS edition of homo sacer is here, but the sections are also available separately.…

Pills is away, so 1Dime Tony came present a thesis he's working at. Tony rejoins the pill pod to excavate the terms "woke right" and the semiotics of "woke" more broadly. We don't always agree, but we attempt to deduce which conservative faction is accusing which other of wokeness, although it is sometimes tough going figuring what they mean by the…

According to Derrida, metaphysicians have spent 2000 years conceptually boxing-in metaphor because they don't want to admit their dependence on figurative language. This has allowed them to trick themselves into believing that fiction and non-fiction are fundamentally different; that one can be true and the other cannot. In White Mythology, Derrida…

We go deeper into Maurice Merleau-Ponty's insights in The Visible and The Invisible, e.g. The Flesh of the World, the Chiasm, and the Intertwining and what these mean for a meditative experience on the daily. Get the full episode and tons of others at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpillsΑπό τον Plasticpills

This week we looked into OG critic of fascism Wilhelm Reich, who wrote The Mass Psychology of Fascism right after the Nazis were elected in 1933. Reich was among the first "neomarxists", and believed that Marxists need to understand psychoanalysis to understand Fascism. Link to text Find our full episodes on philosophy and theory at https://www.pat…

We compare Maurice Merleau-Ponty's insights in an unfinished work he wrote before his death to the meditations of Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna 18 centuries prior. This episode and all the rest can be found at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpillsΑπό τον Plasticpills

The New York Times has claimed that three "fascism experts" are fleeing Trump and "going abroad". In truth, these are not (all) fascism experts, and they did not flee, in fact they have been in Canada for almost a year because they got jobs at the University of Toronto. We looked into their research, which is the same tired, lib, horseshoe theory b…

We catch you up on Canadian politics by introducing you to our new Prime Minister via his book VALUE(S): Building A Better World For All (https://amzn.to/4dj1oYJ). Bono called it ‘A radical book that speaks out accessibly' (lol)Από τον Plasticpills

Yea we missed a lot of news, but we wanted to cover the Trump regime's war on higher education. As a group with a lot of university affiliations, we hate universities too, but here we try to diagnose the reasons for the recent clashes. Get all of the content at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpillsΑπό τον Plasticpills

After a long hiatus, Pills returns to the main show with some new musings over The Last Samurai, Buddhism and the phenomenology of religion. The Kyoto School and Nagarjuna were mentioned in the episode, but we didn't get into much depth this time round. Find everything we make at the feed at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpills…

This is Part 3. What makes a prophet a prophet? As we are on the civilization decline hill, we are going to experience a higher volume of prophets than usual. Don't miss an episode https://www.patreon.com/plasticpillsΑπό τον Plasticpills

The contemporary political situation has rendered Paradise Lost more relevant now than any time since it was penned by John Milton's daughters. It is an epic, revolutionary in both style and politics, and for this episode we have an expert, Victor Hainagiu, who is writing his dissertation on it. Check out William Blake's illustrations of the text: …

The cults of COVID may never go away, but this is why they are to be expected. This is part II of the plasticpills diatribe on religion focusing on metaphor as the original decision making process in a world and specifically the metaphors of religious laws that begin with keeping your hands clean but end with the mass extermination of people. Liste…

So, after decrying philosophy last episode, we are back on it hard again in 201. The Pill Pod interviews Christopher Satoor on Schelling and his conception of freedom from "the freedom essay", also known as THE PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE ESSENCE OF HUMAN FREEDOM. Chris also does a bunch of interview and video content on YouTube, at https…

Christo-techno-fascism? I'm hunting down the impulse producing the end of the world and how religion functions as a social technology. As it turns out, we're all still religious. All the full episodes are available at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpills The videos are available at https://www.youtube.com/plasticpills…

A panel discussion on how a once great simulation become, almost overnight, the most schizophrenic spectacle in the history of human society. Is it mere distraction? Is it a war to control our extended nervous system. Should we be worried? Find our hidden episodes at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpills…