Raiding the inarticulate since 2010

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Thought experiment: if society turned up in the Lacanian clinic seeking treatment, what would the diagnosis be?

The thought I’m currently preoccupied by is that the diagnosis would be psychosis. In Lacanian terms the pre-psychotic condition, prior to an actual break, rests on the unravelling of the symbolic order; the subject finds themselves unmoored in a bewildering sea of signs without any solid foundation. The worst case scenario for the role of GAI in 2024’s elections is pretty fucking bleak. I wonder increasingly what this would mean for the experienced integrity of the symbolic order, if we see a coverage of GAI in the public sphere as shrill and exhaustive as that which accompanied social media in the mid-2010s. It’s not just the zone being flooded with shit, to paraphrase Steve Bannon, it’s what the recognition of that pervasive condition means for how the integrity of culture is experienced.

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