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
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
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.
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