Clotilde Leguil: "Why is everything toxic?"

BarcelonaClotilde Leguil is a psychoanalyst, philosopher, professor at the Department of Psychoanalysis at the University of Paris 8. She has written The age of toxicity, an essay in which he addresses the new malaise in civilization.

Why talk about toxicity?

— Listening to patients and speeches in the media, I realized that the word has taken on a different meaning than it had in the 21st century.

Which?

— What used to designate toxic substances such as drugs has now entered the realm of human relations. What has happened in civilization to lead us to talk about toxic love, toxic relationships, toxic ways of life? Why do we evoke a substance such as poison to talk about discomfort?

Why do we do it?

— First, we have to go to the word. I feel that it has a certain enigma to it. When patients spoke of something toxic, they did not know exactly what it was or why they had become trapped.

The word is old.

— It comes from classical Greece. We find it in mythology and it is related to the poison of arrows.

In the book he talks about that poison.

— He toxicón isIt is a very strong and powerful poison that is placed on the tip of arrows and is quickly inoculated when the arrow is stuck. And it is a poison that the Greeks attributed to barbarians, that is, to others. I thought it was a nice image.

Because?

— As a metaphor that describes the speeches of others that hurt us, like a poisoned arrow that stabs us and damages our body.

It would seem that toxicity comes from the other.

— And I've been interested in doing just the opposite. Toxicity is an experience that makes us feel uncomfortable; toxicity is inside us. Even without realizing that we are being mistreated, we mistreat ourselves.

As?

— At work, for example, you have to show that you are committed. You don't need to be evaluated. There is self-evaluation. You have to be enthusiastic, and when you finish one thing you can't enjoy it because there is something else.

It has to do with the phenomenon of burnout?

— It comes from toxic business management. The person doesn't see that they have pushed their own limits, and that's when they collapse.

We push the boundaries at work, but she says we push them when it comes to fun, too.

— There is a philosophical term called joy, and I am interested in analyzing how we always seek more and more. We are trapped in a toxic experience that gives us pleasure, but that demands greater and greater addiction. We seek the pleasure of the first time, but we need an ever greater dose to feel what we experienced then. We are subject to this law of joy, but it is a short-sighted joy.

Why is it so hard to get out of it?

— Because this affects our body and we end up internalizing it. So getting out of it implies breaking with all the logic of the collective world. We have internalized it very much.

Self-help says it's all about setting boundaries.

— From a psychoanalytic perspective, I would say that the question is, above all, what limits we find in ourselves, because then we also know what we don't want. We don't let ourselves be done in the same way.

Is there a solution?

— It goes through desire.

As?

— Lacan speaks of desire, which is not a whim, but rather what gives meaning to existence. We live with inhibitions, anguish, and we are lost in relation to desire. And this has nothing to do with an individual desire, but with what allows us to undertake something in culture, in civilization, by being recognized in the other. We must question ourselves about our desire.