This book looks at the political aspects of comedy and how humor is shaped by unconscious social and psychological factors within a particular cultural and historical context. Updating Freud’s work on jokes, Robert Samuels argues that any universal model of comedy must take into account the role played by distinct genres, which are themselves determined by particular political psychopathologies. In looking at contemporary comedy, we encounter a structure that is often seen throughout the w...

This book interrogates the notion that artificial intelligence may represent a threat to the world because it lacks both empathy and reason and suggests that - if we do not intervene to limit and control AI - we are at risk of being overtaken by machines, which are not aligned with human ethics and values. To outline how we should counter the worst tendencies of automated intelligence, we must first understand the roots of morality and reason and why we have been misunderstanding the funda...

Globalism, Psychoanalysis, and the Integration of Eight Global Ideologies argues that psychoanalysis helps us comprehend the different ideologies shaping our world today by examining eight distinct belief systems through their psychological and rhetorical roots, moving beyond simple Left-Right political polarization.The work uses Freud's theory of psychology and politics to answer pressing contemporary questions including why people believe in conspiracy theories, why poli...

Political Pathologies from The Sopranos to Succession argues that highly praised prestige TV shows reveal the underlying fantasies and contradictions of uppermiddle-class political centrists.Through a psychoanalytic interpretation of The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Wire, House of Cards, Dexter, Game of Thrones, and Succession, Robert Samuels uncovers how moderate “liberals” have helped to produce and maintain t...

Generation X and the Rise of the Entertainment Subject defines Gen X as the first generationto be dominated by entertainment subjectivity. A social and psychological feedback loop is created as entertainment caters to adolescent consumers while the consumer, in turn, is shaped by the entertainment they internalize. While the paradigmatic latchkey young adults are immersed in media consumption, they see the world through the lens of popular culture products that seek to capi...

This book argues that whenever we are talking about cancel culture, identity politics, political correctness, antisemitism, conspiracy theories, or the alt-Right, we are dealing with a culture war, which often pits two sides against each other in a split world of good and evil. These political representations rely on a set of unconscious processes best understand through psychoanalysis. As this book argues, if you want to comprehend the rhetoric of the Right, the Left, conservatives, and c...

Trauma, Pedagogy, and the College Mental Health Crisis argues that psychoanalytic theory and practice offers a solution to the large increase in students seeking mental health services.Robert Samuels returns to the roots of psychoanalysis, drawing from Freud’s and Lacan’s conceptions of hysteria and narcissism. This book examines the idea that the repression of psychoanalysis has resulted in a situation where students are being misdiagnosed and mistreated as the underlying...

This book offers a unique approach by using psychoanalytic theory to explain how we can resolve the most important issues facing the world today and in the future. One of my main arguments is that we need to move beyond national politics in order to provide global solutions to global problems. However, there is a misplaced fear concerning global governance, and much of this phobia is derived from a misunderstanding of history and human psychology. Not only do we have to learn to give up ou...

Inspired by Freud’s The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, this book examines the unconscious processes shaping contemporary political ideologies.Addressing ten fundamental questions, Robert Samuels identifies four basic political ideologies: liberal, conservative, Left, and Right, which are often placed in the structure of a logical square, determined by two binary oppositions, with a fifth structure of centrism complicating the square. He turns to psychoanalysis to explai...

This book argues that neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and behavioral economics often function as a political ideology masquerading as a new science. In looking at works by Antonio Damasio, Steven Pinker, Richard Thaler, Cas Sunstein, and John Tooby, Robert Samuels undertakes a close reading of the new brain sciences, and by turning to the works of Freud and Lacan, offers a counter-discourse to these new emerging sciences. He argues that an unintentional political manipulation of sci...

This book sets out to clarify five key Freudian concepts (the pleasure principle, the primary processes, the unconscious, transference, and the reality principle) elaborated early on in Freud’s work but, it is argued, rarely understood—even by psychoanalysts themselves. It examines in turn the post-Freudian paradigms employed in neuropsychoanalysis, Lacan, Zizek, object relations, and psychoanalytic approaches to identity politics, and in doing so reveals the extent to which they have been...

The Psychoanalytic Understanding of Consciousness, Free Will, Language, and Reason examines the ways in which we can use psychoanalysis in order to better understand humanity and explores the question of what makes us human.For thousands of years, thinkers have been trying to define what makes us human. Some of the main questions they have asked is: What is consciousness? Do we have free will? Do animals use language? And what does reason mean? Samuels argues that we need ...