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Why read it?

1 author picked Eros and Civilization as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is a powerful rewriting of Freudian theory from one of the giants of the Frankfurt School, whom I was fortunate enough to study with at UC San Diego. Rather than accept “reality” as a given, Marcuse transforms Freud’s “reality-principle” into the “performance principle”–we perform far more work than reality itself requires because the capitalist system is profiting from our labor. We are thus subjected not just to repression but to surplus repression–which corresponds to the surplus value capitalists extract from our labor power and our purchasing power.

I was always intrigued but also perplexed by psychoanalysis, and this amazing…

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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