The Death Drive is the most controversial theory to arise out of Freudian Psychoanalysis. That all life has an inner drive towards self-destruction and aggression which emerges most clearly in our own compulsion to repeat our traumas brought the Freudian theory of the psyche to the brink of collapse by 1920. In “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” Freud would introduce the Death Drive as a solution to this riddle but it also opened the door to a unique and powerfully frightening theory of mysticism. It would be Georges Bataille that would center the Death Drive in his own theory of the Erotic, Sacrifice and Religious Mysticism.
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#freud #psychoanalysis #bataille #deathdrive #lacan #mysticism
Recommended Readings:
Spielrein – “Destruction as the Cause of Coming Into Being” – https://web.archive.org/web/20160306065337/http://arizonapsychoanalyticsociety.com/downloads/sabrina.pdf
Freud – Beyond the Pleasure Principle – 978-0393007695
Freud – Civilization and Its Discontents – 978-0393617092
Freud – The Freud Reader – 978-0393314038
Bataille – Erotism: Death and Sensuality – 978-0872861909
Bataille – The Accursed Share – 978-0942299113
Bataille – Theory of Religion – 978-0942299090
Barker – The Hellbound Heart – 978-0061452888
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I don't suppose it makes a great deal of difference to Bataille's argument, but his sharp contrast between humans and beasts is now out-dated. Careful study of animal behavior has found many animals that use tools, and has verified what most pet-owners would never have doubted – that higher animals have a clear "theory of mind" – self-consciousness and an understanding that other creatures have a point of view, one that _can be manipulated_. For a philosophical treatment of this change in understanding, I recommend "Beast and Man" by Mary Midgley.
Unfortunately Freud take his fantasy for a reality like a lot of religious people who think they can explain anything in this world especially when something remind them how
They are weak
His theory of dream and sexuality’s it’s a big intellect scam 😂🤣😁👍
I have a question, and I apologize if I sound ignorant, but I’ve noticed you’ve said sometimes after you’ve mentioned names “may his name be blotted out” or “May her blood be avenged.” Where does that come from?
I would like to see Dr S’s take on the relationship between Pauli and Jung – it is like reading U Eco if he was writing in the early 20th century.
Cool dive. As an analytical study, this is an intresting take. The death drive isn't often spoken of.
Of course, it is bunk. Sorry for the bluntness, but it wouldn't be interesting if I was less so. A short breakdown if you care.
PTSD is your brain trying to prevent future harm, trauma you are holding on to, &/or the stages of grief not fully realized (survivor's guilt). In short, it is an attempt by your brain to avoid future harm. You live there, and loud noises bother you because it was part of survival to react to them.
That of course is nothing like OCD or other compulsory behaviors. I am not a doctor, so my knowledge is general. Still, this has nothing to do with your desire for death, but rather is soothing behaviors to avoid death. Much like superstitious behaviors.
It is an interesting concept & I had no expectation this would be about modern psychological practice. So I am grateful you covered it.
Freudian thought is often more about him and control than about his subjects. It is really a case study on Freud when he interviews a subject, not the other way around. Freud projected his problems on his patients sooooo often.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Thank you for re-exploring this subject. Your video on Bataille is actually what got me into his work, and I read much of his book, Eroticism, this summer. It helped me to form some connections between those ideas and some of the themes in the videogame series Dark Souls. I’ve also been exploring Schopenhauer’s work, and I actually don’t understand why it’s commonly characterized as pessimistic, given its proximity to Buddhist thought (which I’ve never heard described as pessimistic). Anyway, great video!
Great video! Now I am thinking about the esotericism of the populist politician — bring the private into the public and then back in again as a result of publicly subsidized privately death drive…total moloch game.
Is our fascination with weird things part of the death drive?
Thanks!
I've honestly been somewhat ruined by a video game using Death Drive as the name for a fictional console, I can't stop hearing the phrase repeated like that old Sega noise.
Great video. I'm impressed by your ability to condense his ideas, i'm currently 2 volumes deep into The Accursed Share, and i've yet to run into some of this stuff. Thinking i'll try Theory of Religion next.
I'm impressed, but a bit perplexed, that this is the second video on Bataille but yet there has been little to no mention of, y'know, that time he tried to make a religion and started a secret society. Is that just low hanging fruit for a channel like this? Will there be a future video perhaps?
thank you.
I need to rewatch this 2 times more, quite the subjects you are choosing these days we love your work here, love from Istanbul
Oubliette 🙂
Probably not valuable but… Freud et al's thoughts on mortality salients really brings to mind the relatively recent craze for terror management theory. It's so poignant, so powerful and so desperately important; simply crying out for a simple and coherent theory – but the explanations ultimately still fall short.
[full disclosure – I really contend with Freud and with the school that follow him because (among other things) they are SO embedded in misogyny and the attendant false divide between the female and the male brain* AND equally so embedded in western Christian culture. Also, unoriginally, I kinda feel like their first issue is that they assume THEY are 'normal']
*nuances of biology and culture too complex to argue in comments 🙂
long way to just say dead is better. life is a waste of time.
I am way too dumb to understand Bataille lol
Norman O. Brown's book "Life against Death" is an interesting book that explores Freud's theory of Eros and Thanatos
"Finite, grinning marionettes driven by an infinite will" – poetic line for real! I think you'd be interested in Ligotti if you haven't read him. Very pessimistic however, just so ya know.
Pain is echo-location, a kind of metaphysical sonar if you will. Pinch yourself, and your attention will be brought to it, and you will know exactly where it was. Our suffering is either food for demons or food for our own soul. They say reality is a simulation but people take this in a much more pedantic way than it was originally intended. Not a computer simulation but a sort of error correction based on our own subjective experience stemming precisely from our will, which is more akin to NEED than WANT. Have you ever achieved something only after you stopped wanting it? That's how you know. Will is nothing more than the need for experiential understanding, and the death drive is the resultant from that. We either learn from our suffering, thus making use of it, error-correcting along the way, or it festers becoming the death drive, since the simulation is no longer of use. And I want ALL my garmonbozia.
Repetition compulsion is more of an effort to heal oneself than kill oneself
When I was a kid I had a weird dream: I was sitting in a church and there was this bald priest up on stage. The priest said: "we must worship the gods" and someone in the congregation said: "what gods?" Then the priest said: "the gods of Christ!" Then the priest pulled off his priests smock, revealing he was wearing a leather thong codpiece and was a muscle-bound shwartznegrean freak. Then he rang a gong and the congregation all started creepily chanting in some other language. I woke up and thought I need to learn more about religion. I hope it was just the death drive behind it.
Thank you so much! It is a joy to see a non-psychoanalyst seriously engaging with psychoanalytical theroy in depth.
The life risking task of birthing children would seem to be an ironic twist on the death drive.
Nicotine was the drug that did him in. Coca is not a carcinogen, nor is nicotine. Tobacco thus used to sate oral cravings of a lost(emphasis mine) breast of the divine/actual Mother. Hence, Siggy could not grok with Jung or these neo-Epicurean Romanticists and their oceans of Summer of Love(s) sans ASC derived via ether/coca/ and absinthe. When the penis(male) gives forth it's/their/his seed cargo, the dissociation is perhaps the only time the static masculine experiences the divine Feminine. That is the death urge of Eros at it's ultimate expression. IMHO/
Thank you for all your wonderful content!
It very well could (simply) be hormonal…
(A biological natural phase) as natural as any other hormonal drive ✨
"finite grinning marionettes driven be infinite will"… (those laced syllables, art in themselves, ty)
Congrats on two hundred and…. eight! thousand! subscribers!
Woah…that blew my mind. I had to stop what I was doing and consider what was being said…it kind of rattled me.
Great video!
What is the name of the painting at around 21:40 very much appreciated