A common recommendation is Bruce Fink's 'The Lacanian Subject', but the recently published 'The Cambridge Introduction to Lacan' by Todd McGowan is probably a good place to begin as well.

Woooooow well done!!!

To defend Joe Biden, who "allowed the genocide of the Palestinian population etc.", because he's now a cancer patient is like remembering Hitler on Suicide Prevention Day.

Yes! Hegel is an obvious choice here, but if you *had* to pick, which chapter from PoS do you think would be the best? Or from any other of his writings?

small note: it was probably Louis Blanc who coined the term capitalism, and Marx never used the term at all. He called it "generalised commodity production", and would refer to capital and capitalists, but never the word "capitalism".

I would even say that a Lacanian point here is that work has to be a bit shit and boring so we can enjoy the rest of our lives. Imagine having to enjoy work! I'm okay with it being (a bit) shit, not too much, obviously. But enough so that we can bitch about it a bit when we go home to our families.

Yeah, there's so-called constituted (historical) & constitutive (inherent) alienation. I hope you're right, but I'm pessimistic about work having necessarily any artistic quality. But I'd be fine with work being a bit shit so long as we don't have to worry about house, school, health, food, etc.

oops my gender bias has shown

A lot of undergrads get into trauma studies and find the idea that "trauma is an encounter with the Real", but when talking about the Real, it is often forgotten: the Real is traumatic precisely because it is the impossible that nevertheless happens.

The first book I ever read on semiotics was "Semiotics: A Graphic Guide" as a complete beginner, and it was simply a great starting point. All the basics and a bit more.

From there, he could probably pick up Bruce Fink's The Lacanian Subject if he's already interested in Lacan.

So, we can't overcome our alienation from society, we shouldn't hope to become "One" with the rest of the world because we can't even become "One" with ourselves. The task is thus not an unalienated utopia, but an alienation with which we can come to terms.

That's the Lacanian approach, imo.

Agree we are alienated from society, but I think it's worth noting that desire means you are alienated from yourself, not just from the world, and this internal alienation is what constitutes you as a subject, impossible to "fix", to "satisfy" our desire and become Whole/One without losing ourselves

If you haven't already, you might enjoy Todd McGowan's Capitalism & Desire, which explores how and why capitalism is able to exploit our desire/alienation so effectively. He's a clear writer and no deep knowledge of Lacan is necessary.