Politikal Therapy: Recent Episodes
Politikal Therapy
Politikal Therapy is an online radio program that streams from the global south. Current and not so current events are analyzed through the lens of psychoanalysis and Gestalt therapy, as well as philosophy and the social sciences. Today´s culture, society and individuals are in dire need of explanation, and also in urgent need of healing. We also write a lot, so check out our blog.
I´m leaving the political show, I have better things to do. Podcasts are awesome, social media is for neurotics.
In this episode, philosophers Todd McGowan and Tomas Molina are back to give us their insights into the logic of class, caste and race in the United States, based on Pulitzer prize winner Isabel Wilkerson´s take on American society, and what such structure could entail for the upcoming November election.
In this episode we interview renowned academic Todd McGowan, who provides his sharp and thought-provoking insights into the master-slave dialectic, international politics, and analyzes the idea of freedom and contradiction in Colombian society, through Hegel and psychoanalysis.
This episode focuses on the mechanism that, in a way, fuels and maintains our absurd structure. That mechanism is fear. The junction between politics, understood as the struggle for power and not necessarily as a force for emancipation, and fear is clear. According to G. Ferrero every civilization is the product of a long struggle against fear.
Somewhat recent cases of torture in international politics have called for their own examination through psychoanalysis, given the particularly heinous specificities of the atrocities that were committed. Information detailing what occurred in Abu Ghraib prison in Bagdad, where American soldiers tortured Iraqi war prisoners, reached the public sphere. The American authorities reaction was curious, to say the least.
Just like Abu Ghraib resonates with American high school and college culture (bullying, hazing, etc.), Dabeiba resonates with Colombian costumes. It is telling that Abu Ghraib style American torture was carried out on foreigners (are not the “losers” in American high schools foreign to the cool popular kids?). In Dabeiba, however, Colombian state agents tortured and assassinated other Colombians (innocent ones) for the purpose of achieving higher security indicators. The more assassinations took place, the safer Colombians were supposed to feel.
Why are some nations more tolerant of political corruption than others? What are the cultural determinants of what is acceptable behavior for politicians and what they should be held accountable for? In this episode, I explore these questions focusing on Colombia; a country that from a social standpoint accepts inequality as part of the landscape is power-driven and also highly indulgent. This time, I analyze cultural phenomena through social science (cultural dimensions theory) and gestalt psychotherapy.
What is utopia? Aside from its classic meaning as an unrealizable dream of a perfect place, what are its implications for the subject and for politics? Taking reference from the works of Slavoj Žižek and Rutger Bregman, this episodes discusses the different manifestations of utopia, its functions, and the necessity of a utopia that transcends neurotic escapism and consumerist transgression.
This introductory episode focuses on the different reasons for producing Politikal Theory. It also, albeit briefly, discusses negation and disavowal in our current global political structure.