Human Condition - Universalmuseum Joanneum

8 Ibid., pp. 65–66.
9 Ibid., p. 66.
10 Ibid.
11 Róheim quoted in Ian D. Suttie,
The Origins of Love and Hate
(New York: Julian Press, 1952),
p. 227.
12 Suttie, The Origins of Love
and Hate, pp. 227–228.
13 Ibid., p. 231.
14 Freud, Civilization and Its
Discontents, 2nd ed. Introduction
by Peter Gay. James Strachey,
trans. (New York: W.W. Norton,
1989), p. 11.
instinct.” It was to become the centerpiece of his view of human nature. Freud says
that the notion of the death instinct came to him when he wrote Beyond the Pleasure
Principle in 1920,
Starting from speculations on the beginning of life and from biological parallels,
I drew the conclusion that, besides the instinct to preserve living substance and
to join into ever larger units, there must exist another, contrary instinct seeking
to dissolve those units and to bring them back to their primeval, inorganic state.
That is to say, as well as Eros there was an instinct of death. The phenomena of life
could be explained from the concurrent or mutually opposing action of these two
instincts.8
Freud viewed the death instinct – the drive to aggressiveness and destruction –
as a force that could be
pressed into the service of Eros, in that the organism was destroying some other
thing, whether animate or inanimate, instead of destroying its own self. Conversely,
any restriction of this aggressiveness directed outwards would be bound to increase
the self-destruction, which is in any case proceeding.9
In the first instance, the death instinct manifests itself in the form of sadism and
in the second instance, masochism, both of which are expressions of the instinctual
sexual drive. That sexual drive seeks release in omnipotence and power over
others in the case of sadism and in humiliation and self-destruction in the case of
masochism.10
Freud ultimately concluded that all of life was at the service of the death instinct.
His deeply pessimistic view of human nature was embraced by many of the leading
thinkers of the day. Freudian psy choanalyst Géza Róheim referred to the death instinct
as the “pillar of metapsychology.”11 Not everyone, however, was won over to Freud’s
dark assessment of the human spirit. lan D. Suttie was one of a number of psychologists
who broke away from Freud’s analysis in the 1920s and 1930s, referring to
his theory as
the supreme expression of hatred, elevating this, as it does, to the status of a primal,
independent purpose in life – a separate appetite which like hunger requires no
external provocation and is an end-in-itself.12
Every other human emotion, in Freud’s world, is but a residual repression of the sexual
drive and the death instinct. Even love and tenderness are viewed as repressed or
weakened expressions of the erotic impulse.13 Civilization has only one purpose: to
become the means by which human beings satisfy their libidinal needs by pursuing
mastery over others and advancing their material self-interest.
Strangely absent from Freud’s analysis is any deep consideration of motherly love, a
powerful and undeniable force found among ani mals that nurse their young. Herein lies
a clue to Freud’s own per sonal psychology and even pathology. In Civilization and Its
Discontents, Freud makes a revealing admission that speaks volumes. Regarding the
infant’s feeling of oneness with the mother, Freud writes, “I can not discover this oceanic
feeling in myself.”14 While he acknowledges that others might have such a feeling, it
eludes him. Freud regards the infant, as the later adult he will become, as libido driven
from the outset. The mother is not an object of love and affection but, rather, an object
of sexual and material utility, whose sole purpose is to ful fill the infant’s internal drive
for sexual satisfaction and pleasure. Attachment, love, affection, and companionship