Freud as a Social and Cultural Theorist by Howard L. Kaye

Author:Howard L. Kaye [Kaye, Howard L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Sociology
ISBN: 9780429776922
Google: zLF5DwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 40830886
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-11-14T03:09:44+00:00

On the nature of evil and the transformation of instinct

In Freud’s view, human evil is ineradicable because it is rooted in the impulses of our most elementary nature. Nevertheless, this evil is not as “evil” as we fear. “These impulses in themselves are neither good nor bad,” but they are conventionally labeled as such according to “the needs and demands of the human community” (Freud 1915b, SE14: 281). Once condemned by society as “evil” and acknowledged within the psyche as something to be prohibited and therefore repressed, such expressions of primal need undergo a variety of vicissitudes, as Freud had often discussed. They may be inhibited, redirected towards other aims and objects, or altered and disguised in various ways, so that some degree of expression is attained. In “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death,” however, Freud acknowledges that another vicissitude is possible: the “transformation” and even “ennoblement” of an “evil” impulse into an inner inclination towards the good (281–286).

Freud had first hinted at such a possibility in Totem and Taboo, in the distinction he draws between the mere displacement of ambivalent feelings onto other objects or the “shouting down” of hostility through the intensification of affection (i.e., reaction-formation) on the one hand, and their transformation into “piety” or “remorse” on the other (SE13: 49, 66, 128–129, 145). In “Instincts and Their Vicissitudes,” the distinction between those fates, such as sublimation in which there is a “transformation of instinct” and those like reaction-formation where there is none is made explicit (SE14: 127–129). But it is only in this essay on war and death that Freud provides his fullest account of how such a transformation is achieved.

Two factors are involved in “the transformation of ‘bad’ instincts.” First there is the external force exerted by upbringing and the “claims of our cultural environment,” which demands the renunciation of certain forms of satisfaction. This may elicit compliance, however reluctant, to cultural demands, but a true transformation of instinct only occurs when the external force is supplemented by an inner compulsion born of love. It is only when the “human need for love” adds “erotic components”—including homoerotic and narcissistic ones—to brutally egoistic ones, that socially defined “bad” instincts are transformed into socially sanctioned and inwardly desired “good” ones (Freud 1915b, SE14: 282). Through the desire to love and be loved, rather than in response to fear and coercion, individuals abandon certain impulses willingly, and voluntarily pursue others, according to the cultural demands placed upon them.

Over time, Freud claims, the pressure exerted by the cultural environment has achieved “an ever-increasing transformation of egoistic trends into altruistic and social ones by an admixture of erotic elements.” Nevertheless, we are often misled by outward obedience to cultural demands to exaggerate our “susceptibility to culture,” that is, our capacity to transform egoistic drives into social ones through the infusion of eros. In most cases, culturally “good” conduct springs less from “noble” motives and inner inclinations than the fear of punishment or the prospect of more tangible rewards.

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