Libido

Worked through in 2 videos · 2 passages.

Summary

Dominique Pagani approaches libido from two angles. In his sessions on desire, he links it to Spinoza, whom he reads as a pre-Freudian thinker: a sentence of Spinoza's already makes libido what comes first and what determines judgment1. He repeats this point in almost the same terms in 2014 and in 20232. In 2024, he returns to it in his sessions on the Grail quest and Wagner's Parsifal. He recalls that it used to be called concupiscence and presents Klingsor as the one who wants to suppress it in himself and who, failing to do so, castrates himself3. He also quotes Nietzsche, who detects in Parsifal a lubricity with a vague whiff of incense4. Finally, he points out that desire is not only the child's: the parents also invest the child libidinally, which sheds light on Perceval's fixation on his mother5.

Summary produced automatically from 5 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

Cycle 12 · 21 Apr 2024Saving the saviour? Redemption, the end of the cycle or its new beginning?

3:31Desire is not only that of the child: parents also libidinally invest the child, hence Perceval's fixation on his mother.

Series · 17 Dec 2014D for Desire

3:37Spinoza's sentence, pre-Freudian, makes libido what is primary and determines judgment.