Thursday, October 06, 2005
(1:23 PM) | Old - Doug Johnson:
Death Drive vs. Martydom
A month or so ago, I finished Peter Gay's 650pp.+ biography of Freud. There a number of posts kicking around in my head after that reading that I will probably never get around to writing, but here's one:By around the middle of his pscyhoanalytic career (or by the end of WWI), Freud had put the death drive on par with the sex drive/Oedipus complex as the driving forces behind basically all human action. Zizek, of course, follows Freud and Lacan in making hay of this supposed instinct, but Badiou rejects the way death overdetermines much of the West's discourse. His suggestion that the cross and martyrdom are not major driving forces in Paul's thought is often referenced favorably in this forum. Sometimes I think B. has a point. B. is certainly right that the Resurrection is more important in Paul's thinking (nevertheless ...). At other times, I think he's simply an old man who's squeamish about the topic. Or that it is a convenient way for him to avoid dealing seriously with most of the major events of 20th century politics.
As on so many fronts, I simply think Foucault is much more on target than any of the Freudians . For Foucault, one might be able to speak of a death instinct, though as a historically determined rather than an essential driving factor behind human action. F.'s analysis of biopower traces the shift from the supremacy of a sovereign who could take life or let live to administrative regimes which have now gathered to themselves the power to foster life or let die. Thus, it is not a bit surprising that as this shift occurred, suicide became a political preoccupation. Whereas in the past, death merely marked the transfer of sovereignty from a worldly potentate to one infinitely more powerful, now death is desired as the only way to escape; it marks the outer limit of administrative power. The death drive is explanable as an ultimate thirst for freedom in a very different world.
One could (and I believe some have) suggest(ed) that Foucault's understanding of suicide as 'an art it takes a lifetime to learn' could lend support to a theology of martyrdom. Doesn't it rather seem that martyrdom might rather have simply become almost impossible under the situation of biopower? For F., administrative regimes generally have no desire or need to kill individuals who stand in their way (genocide and the like notwithstanding - such atrocities are accounted for in a way quite different than martyrlogical anaylses by Foucault). Rather, modern empires are ordered around promoting a particular vision of the social body.
Would like to say more, but have run out of time ...
thoughts?
