Freud divided the mind into three parts: the id (the instincts), the ego (which reins in the instincts) and the superego (which oversees the other two). The superego is, notoriously, authoritarian. Freud calls it the representative of established morality and compares it to a garrison in a conquered town. It…

René Girard, in response to critics who called his theory an idée fixe, agreed, claiming that he does indeed see evidence of his theory in almost everything: Send any masterpiece you like my way, literary, cultural or religious, and it will be quite a miracle if I do not come…

‘The tallest poppy gets cut first’ ‘The nail that sticks out gets hammered down’ These sayings describe how groups enforce conformity. Those who distinguish themselves and excel are brought back ‘down to earth’. This is especially true in certain communities. Chris Williamson, for instance, in his interview with Joe Rogan…

Ruth Millington’s recent book, Muse, is, as its subtitle suggests, revisionist. It seeks to ‘Uncover the Hidden Figures Behind Art History’s Masterpieces’. In doing so, it also seeks to dispel the stereotype of the artist–muse relationship, ‘defined by female (musal) subordination to male (artistic) authority’. According to Millington, this stereotype…

Following on from Budden’s viral critique of Drake’s album, the JBP, discussing the state of the music industry, made observations similar to the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who, in 1992, outlined the unspoken rules of the art industry. According to Bourdieu, the art industry is divided by two opposing principles; the…

‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers’ (Ephesians 6:12) What we used to ascribe to supernatural spirits, we now ascribe to diseases of the mind. The possessed, in this modern perspective, is a patient, and instead of holy water and prayer, there’s pharmaceuticals and…

If you’ve seen Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher, you’ve probably wondered who Verna is supposed to be. A quick google search will say that her name is an anagram of the word ‘Raven’, in reference to Poe’s best-known poem. But this is a surface-level interpretation. Just as…

The new season of Mike Flanagan’s Haunting series is an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe. While the two previous seasons (The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor) have taken a singular text as their inspiration, The Fall of the House of Usher is based on multiple…

In an unfinished introduction to a book that would’ve been called Acid Communism, Mark Fisher speaks on Marcuse’s ‘declining influence’; due, he claims, to an attempt to revise the 60s, and suppress certain narratives that emerged out of it. ‘One-Dimensional Man’, he says, ‘has remained a reference point’ — possibly…