aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
-rw-r--r--books/psicologia/eros-civilization.md226
-rw-r--r--books/psicologia/eros-civilization/detours-to-death.pngbin0 -> 129210 bytes
2 files changed, 225 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/books/psicologia/eros-civilization.md b/books/psicologia/eros-civilization.md
index 93d4806..60a736d 100644
--- a/books/psicologia/eros-civilization.md
+++ b/books/psicologia/eros-civilization.md
@@ -414,7 +414,184 @@ Superego:
than ever before. This time there shall be no killing of the father, not even a
"symbolic" killing -- because he may not find a successor.
-### Misc
+### Repression due to exogenous factors: the central argument
+
+ Therefore, if the historical process tended to make obsolete the institutions
+ of the performance principle, it would also tend to make obsolete the
+ organization of the instincts -- that is to say, to release the instincts from
+ the constraints and diversions required by the performance principle. This
+ would imply the real possibility of a gradual elimination of
+ surplus-repression, whereby an expanding area of destructiveness could be
+ absorbed or neutralized by strengthened libido. Evidently, Freud' s theory
+ precludes the construction of any psychoanalytical utopia. If we accept his
+ theory and still maintain that there is historical substance in the idea of a
+ non-repressive civilization, then it must be derivable from Freud's instinct
+ theory itself. His concepts must be examined to discover whether or not they
+ contain elements that require reinterpretation. This approach would parallel
+ the one used in the preceding sociological discussion.
+
+ [...]
+
+ Freud maintains that an essential conflict between the two principles is
+ inevitable; however, in the elaboration of his theory, this inevitability seems
+ to be opened to question. The conflict, in the form it assumes in civilization,
+ is said to be caused and perpetuated by the prevalence of Ananke, Lebensnot,
+ the struggle for existence. (The later stage of the instinct theory, with the
+ concepts of Eros and death instinct, does not cancel this thesis: Lebensnot
+ now appears as the want and deficiency inherent in organic life itself.) The
+ struggle for existence necessitates the repressive modification of the
+ instincts chiefly because of the lack of sufficient means and resources for
+ integral, painless and toilless gratification of instinctual needs. If this is
+ true, the repressive organization of the instincts in the struggle for
+ existence would be due to exogenous factors -- exogenous in the sense that
+ they are not inherent in the "nature" of the instincts but emerge from the
+ specific historical conditions under which the instincts develop.
+
+ [...]
+
+ According to Freud, this distinction is meaningless, for the instincts
+ themselves are "historical"; 1 there is no instinctual structure "outside" the
+ historical structure. However, this does not dispense with the necessity of
+ making the distinction -- except that it must be made within the historical
+ structure itself. The latter appears as stratified on two levels: (a) the
+ phylogenetic-biological level, the development of the animal man in the
+ struggle with nature; and (b) the sociological level, the development of
+ civilized individuals and groups in the struggle among themselves and with
+ their environment .
+
+ The two levels are in constant and inseparable interaction, but factors
+ generated at the second level are exogenous to the first and have therefore a
+ different weight and validity (although, in the course of the development, they
+ can "sink down" to the first level): they are more relative; they can change
+ faster and without endangering or reversing the development of the genus. This
+ difference in the origin of instinctual modification underlies the distinction
+ we have introduced between repression and surplus-repression; 2 the latter
+ originates and is sustained at the sociological level.
+
+ [...]
+
+ For his metapsychology, it is not decisive whether the inhibitions are imposed
+ by scarcity or by the hierarchical distribution of scarcity, by the struggle
+ for existence or by the interest in domination. And indeed the two factors --
+ the phylogenetic-biological and the sociological -- have grown together in the
+ recorded history of civilization. But their union has long since become
+ "unnatural" -and so has the oppressive "modification" of the pleasure principle
+ by the reality principle. Freud' s consistent denial of the possibility of an
+ essential liberation of the former implies the assumption that scarcity is as
+ permanent as domination -- an assumption that seems to beg the question. By
+ virtue of this assumption, an extraneous fact obtains the theoretical dignity
+ of an inherent element of mental life, inherent even in the primary instincts.
+ In the light of the long-range trend of civilization, and in the light of
+ Freud' s own interpretation of the instinctual development, the assumption must
+ be questioned. The historical piossibility of a gradual decontrolling of the
+ instinctual development must be taken seriously, perhaps even the historical
+ necessity -- if civilization is to progress to a higher stage of freedom.
+
+ [...]
+
+ The diagram sketches a historical sequence from the beginning of organic life
+ (stages 2 and 3), through the formative stage of the two primary instincts (5),
+ to their "modified " development as human instincts in civilization (6-7). The
+ turning points are at stages 3 and 6. They are both caused by exogenous factors
+ by virtue of which the definite formation as well as the subsequent dynamic of
+ the instincts become "historically acquired." At stage 3, the exogenous factor
+ is the " unrelieved tension " created by the birth of organic life; the
+ "experience" that life is less "satisfactory," more painful, than the preceding
+ stage generates the death instinct as the drive for relieving this tension
+ through regression. The working of the death instinct thus appears as the
+ result of the trauma of primary frustration: want and pain, here caused by a
+ geological-biological event.
+
+ The other turning point, however, is no longer a geological-biological one: it
+ occurs at the threshold of civilization. The exogenous factor here is Ananke,
+ the conscious struggle for existence. It enforces the repressive controls of
+ the sex instincts (first through the brute violence of the primal father, then
+ through institutionalization and internalization), as well as the
+ transformation of the death instinct into socially useful aggression and
+ morality. This organization of the instincts (actually a long process) creates
+ the civilized division of labor, progress, and law and order"; but it also
+ starts the chain of events that leads to the progressive weakening of Eros and
+ thereby to the growth of aggressiveness and guilt feeling. We have seen that
+ this development is not "inherent" in the struggle for existence but only in
+ its oppressive organization, and that at the present stage the possible
+ conquest of want makes this struggle ever more irrational.
+
+ [...]
+
+ In the biological-geological conditions which Freud assumed for the living
+ substance as such, no such change can be envisaged; the birth of life continues
+ to be a trauma, and thus the reign of the Nirvana principle seems to be
+ unshakable. However, the derivatives of the death instinct operate only in
+ fusion with the sex instincts; as long as life grows, the former remain
+ subordinate to the latter; the fate of the destrudo (the "energy" of the
+ destruction instincts) depends on that of the libido. Consequently, a
+ qualitative change in the development of sexuality must necessarily alter the
+ manifestations of the death instinct.
+
+ Thus, the hypothesis of a non-repressive civilization must be theoretically
+ validated first by demonstrating the possibility of a nonrepressive development
+ of the libido under the conditions of mature civilization. The direction of
+ such a development is indicated by those mental forces which, according to
+ Freud, remain essentially free from the reality principle and carry over this
+ freedom into the world of mature consciousness. Their re-examination must be
+ the next step.
+
+### Detours to death: death instinct and negentropy
+
+ Our re-examination must therefore begin with Freud's analysis of the death
+ instinct. We have seen that, in Freud's late theory of the instincts, the
+ "compulsion inherent in organic life to restore an earlier state of things
+ which the living entity has been obliged to abandon under the pressure of
+ external disturbing forces" 4 is common to both primary instincts: Eros and
+ death instinct. Freud regards this retrogressive tendency as an expression of
+ the "inertia" in organic life, and ventures the following hypothetical
+ explanation: at the time when life originated in inanimate matter, a strong
+ "tension" developed which the young organism strove to relieve by returning to
+ the inanimate condition. 5 At the early stage of organic life, the road to the
+ previous state of inorganic existence was probably very short, and dying very
+ easy; but gradually "external influences " lengthened this road and compelled
+ the organism to take ever longer and more complicated "detours to death."
+
+[[!img detours-to-death.png link="no"]]
+
+### Phantasy
+
+ Phantasy plays a most decisive function in the total mental structure: it links
+ the deepest layers of the unconscious with the highest products of
+ consciousness (art), the dream with the reality; it preserves the archetypes of
+ the genus, the perpetual but repressed ideas of the collective and individual
+ memory, the tabooed images of freedom.
+
+ [...]
+
+ The recognition of phantasy (imagination) as a thought process with its own
+ laws and truth values was not new in psychology and philosophy; Freud' s
+ original contribution lay in the attempt to show the genesis of this mode of
+ thought and its essential connection with the pleasure principle. The
+ establishment of the reality principle causes a division and mutilation of the
+ mind which fatefully determines its entire development. The mental process
+ formerly unified in the pleasure ego is now split: its main stream is channeled
+ into the domain of the reality principle and brought into line with its
+ requirements. Thus conditioned, this part of the mind obtains the monopoly of
+ interpreting, manipulating, and altering reality -- of governing remembrance
+ and oblivion, even of defining what reality is and how it should be used and
+ altered. The other part of the mental apparatus remains free from the control
+ of the reality principle -- at the price of becoming powerless,
+ inconsequential, unrealistic.
+ Whereas the ego was formerly guided and driven by the whole of its mental
+ energy, it is now to be guided only by that part of it which conforms to the
+ reality principle. This part and this part alone is to set the objectives,
+ norms, and values of the ego; as reason it becomes the sole repository of
+ judgment, truth, rationality; it decides what is useful and useless, good and
+ evil. 2 Phantasy as a separate mental process is born and at the same time
+ left behind by the organization of the pleasure ego into the reality ego.
+ Reason prevails: it becomes unpleasant but useful and correct; phantasy remains
+ pleasant but becomes useless, untrue -- a mere play, daydreaming. As such, it
+ continues to speak the language of the pleasure principle, of freedom from
+ repression, of uninhibited desire and gratification -- but reality proceeds
+ according to the laws of reason, no longer committed to the dream language.
+
+## Unsublimated pleasure
Smell and taste give, as it were, unsublimated pleasure per se (and unrepressed
disgust). They relate (and separate) individuals immediately, without the
@@ -424,8 +601,25 @@ Superego:
and to prevent spontaneous relationships and thènatural' animal -like
expressions of such relations."
+### Art
+
+ Still, within the limits of the aesthetic form, art expressed, although in an
+ ambivalent manner , the return of the repressed image of liberation; art was
+ opposition. At the present stage, in the period of total mobilization, even
+ this highly ambivalent opposition seems no longer viable. Art survives only
+ where it cancels itself , where it saves its substance by denying its
+ traditional form and thereby denying reconciliation: where it becomes
+ surrealistic and atonal. 6 Otherwise, art shares the fate of all genuine human
+ communication : it dies off.
+
[...]
+ In a less sublimated form, the opposition of phantasy to the reality principle
+ is more at home in such sub-real and surreal processes as dreaming,
+ daydreaming, play, the "stream of consciousness."
+
+### Misc
+
But, again, Freud shows that this repressive system does not really solve the
conflict. Civilization plunges into a destructive dialectic: the perpetual
restrictions on Eros ultimately weaken the life instincts and thus strengthen
@@ -568,3 +762,33 @@ Superego:
whole, whose existence is its denial. This foe appears as the archenemy and
Antichrist himself : he is everywhere at all times ; he represents hidden and
sinister forces, and his omnipresence requires total mobilization.
+
+ [...]
+
+ Being is essentially the striving for pleasure. This striving becomes an "aim"
+ in the human existence: the erotic impulse to combine living substance into
+ ever larger and more durable units is the instinctual source of civilization.
+ The sex instincts are life instincts: the impulse to preserve and enrich life
+ by mastering nature in accordance with the developing vital needs is originally
+ an erotic impulse.
+ Ananke is experienced as the barrier against the satisfaction of the life
+ instincts, which seek pleasure, not security. And the "struggle for existence"
+ is originally a struggle for pleasure: culture begins with the collective
+ implementation of this aim. Later, however, the struggle for existence is
+ organized in the interest of domination: the erotic basis of culture is
+ transformed. When philosophy conceives the essence of being as Logos, it is
+ already the Logos of domination -- commanding, mastering, directing reason, to
+ which man and nature are to be subjected Freud' s interpretation of being in
+ terms of Eros recaptures the early stage of Plato's philosophy, which conceived
+ of culture not as the repressive sublimation but as the free
+ self-development of Eros. As early as Plato, this conception appears as an
+ archaic-mythical residue. Eros is being absorbed into Logos, and Logos is
+ reason which subdues the instincts.
+ The history of ontology reflects the reality principle which governs the world
+ ever more exclusively: The insights contained in the metaphysical notion of
+ Eros were driven underground. They survived, in eschatological distortion, in
+ many heretic movements, in the hedonistic philosophy. Their history has still
+ to be written -- as has the history of the transformation of Eros in Agape. 29
+ Freud's own theory follows the general trend: in his work, the rationality of
+ the predominant reality principle supersedes the metaphysical speculations on
+ Eros.
diff --git a/books/psicologia/eros-civilization/detours-to-death.png b/books/psicologia/eros-civilization/detours-to-death.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3012525
--- /dev/null
+++ b/books/psicologia/eros-civilization/detours-to-death.png
Binary files differ