Why Theory Impossible Professions
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May 11, 2026 They explore Freud's concept of professions that have no natural endpoint and why education, government, and medicine feel endlessly unfinished. They link that endlessness to public trust, political manipulation, and how skepticism turns expertise into 'grift'. They consider transference as a binding force and even suggest stand-up comedy fits the pattern.
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Dentist Confessed Marathon Man Revelry
- Ryan recounts a dentist who claimed dental students cheered during Marathon Man, implying dentists joke about patient pain.
- The story illustrates how even non-impossible professions can harbor unethical or sadistic behavior.
Death Drive Explains Repeated Professional Failure
- The death drive complicates success: when practitioners near success they may subvert it, producing repetition of failure.
- Todd and Ryan tie Freud's death drive discovery to the structural impossibility across these professions.
Public Distrust Turns Expertise Into A Grift
- Public distrust in medicine, education, and government deepens the 'impossibility' because ongoing work can appear like a grift when outcomes are diffuse or slow.
- Ryan links rising fascism and the hollowing of public trust to deliberate erosion of faith in these professions.