In today’s episode I discuss the spook of uselessness / or usefulness depending on how you look at it. This episode also features an interview with the Egoist Union International regarding their text The Idler’s Manifesto. (scroll down for a list of texts).
0:01 Introduction:
1:44 Spook of the Week: To be Useless / Useful
28:48 Dissecting the Spook: The Philosophical History of Usefulness / Uselessness
44:50 Living Ownness: How to Become Useless
54:02 Spotlight: The Egoist Union International & The Idler’s Manifesto
1:17:18 Outro
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BOOKS AND ARTICLES / ESSAYS:
(some of these links are affiliate links which, if used to make a purchase on Amazon, will lead to me getting a commission payment via the Amazon affiliate program):
Mentioned in episode:
E.U.I - The Idler’s Manifesto https://amzn.to/3SDQu6E
Max Stirner – The Ego and Its Own https://amzn.to/45bZpUm
Plato – Republic (Book VI) https://amzn.to/4dPlTg7
Aristotle – Nicomachean Ethics https://amzn.to/43tBRZI
Augustine – On Christian Doctrine https://amzn.to/455WuMN
Francis Bacon – Novum Organum https://amzn.to/3FJOgj0
René Descartes – Discourse on Method https://amzn.to/43GsaaB
Karl Marx – Capital https://amzn.to/4jHKg0z
Frantz Fanon – The Wretched of the Earth https://amzn.to/45537Ps
Michel Foucault – Discipline and Punish https://amzn.to/4kVJKNu
Nick Land – Fanged Noumena https://amzn.to/4ksvYls
Sigmund Freud – The Ego and the Id https://amzn.to/4kLdcW8
Melanie Klein – The Psycho-Analysis of Children https://amzn.to/4klzGxg
Jacques Lacan – Écrits https://amzn.to/3ZQjEmN
Donald Winnicott – The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment https://amzn.to/4knwjWA
Julia Kristeva – Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection https://amzn.to/3ZO5x1k
Useful (haha) literature (not mentioned)
Paul Lafargue – The Right to Be Lazy https://amzn.to/4kXHCot
Friedrich Nietzsche – On the Genealogy of Morality https://amzn.to/45JISae
Herman Melville – Bartleby, the Scrivener https://amzn.to/4kVOYst
Albert Camus – The Myth of Sisyphus https://amzn.to/4kEgAm0
Giorgio Agamben – The Coming Community https://amzn.to/3ZLgHny
Maurizio Lazzarato – The Making of the Indebted Man https://amzn.to/3FIS5oD
Byung-Chul Han – The Burnout Society https://amzn.to/4kX18S6
Mark Fisher – Capitalist Realism https://amzn.to/4dNoRl4
Bob Black – The Abolition of Work https://amzn.to/4dVFtHE
Hakim Bey – Temporary Autonomous Zone https://amzn.to/43O9N1Y
Michel Foucault – Discipline and Punish https://amzn.to/3HtBA0n
Jenny Odell – How to Do Nothing https://amzn.to/4dVFzz0
David Graeber – Bullshit Jobs https://amzn.to/3FJP87g
Kathi Weeks – The Problem with Work https://amzn.to/4jCJDFp
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