WCH
June 5, 2008, 12:24 AM
Okay, crash course in Freud time. Background in spoilers.
Doing a presentation on Fight Club for a 300-level seminar course called The Hypothesis of the Unconscious, which presents Jung and Freud's distinct theories of the unconscious and holds them up to scrutiny in a number of contexts (later in the course we'll be getting into some pretty intense stuff, like an essay by Sartre which flatly rejects the entire notion of the Unconscious). Currently we're in the literature section, and, as I said, I'm presenting on Fight Club -- the movie, not the book.
So... I want to talk about Thanatos, as it seems to be broadly applicable to Fight Club in too many ways to get into right now. Trouble is, I'm really more familiar with Jung than with Freud, and to my knowledge, Jung didn't really talk much about the concept of a death drive... so I've got to use Freud in my presentation, even though, in general, I think he's full of shit, and as a result haven't read nearly enough of his stuff.
Basically, I need to gain a working knowledge of Freud's concept of the death drive, and I've got about 8 hours to do so (and during that time I plan to also take some more notes on the film, take a nap and eat breakfast. Maybe play some Civ if I stop being productive). Anyone have any good resources for such a thing?
My understanding of it currently:
Posited against eros, the life drive, the death drive is a destructive impulse which desires to return things to a prior state, and particularly one of inanimacy. It's used to explain sadism, vandalism and things which spring from them such as war; masochism is explained as a kind of subject/object inversion, where the sadistic impulse becomes direct upon the self. It's supposedly tied intrinsically with sexual desire, which is really perfect for Fight Club in many ways, but I don't have any idea why this should be so -- if someone could explain that, I'd be very appreciative.
Okay... so what did I say in that last paragraph which isn't correct (from a Freudian perspective)? What major aspects am I missing? Any related comments?
Doing a presentation on Fight Club for a 300-level seminar course called The Hypothesis of the Unconscious, which presents Jung and Freud's distinct theories of the unconscious and holds them up to scrutiny in a number of contexts (later in the course we'll be getting into some pretty intense stuff, like an essay by Sartre which flatly rejects the entire notion of the Unconscious). Currently we're in the literature section, and, as I said, I'm presenting on Fight Club -- the movie, not the book.
So... I want to talk about Thanatos, as it seems to be broadly applicable to Fight Club in too many ways to get into right now. Trouble is, I'm really more familiar with Jung than with Freud, and to my knowledge, Jung didn't really talk much about the concept of a death drive... so I've got to use Freud in my presentation, even though, in general, I think he's full of shit, and as a result haven't read nearly enough of his stuff.
Basically, I need to gain a working knowledge of Freud's concept of the death drive, and I've got about 8 hours to do so (and during that time I plan to also take some more notes on the film, take a nap and eat breakfast. Maybe play some Civ if I stop being productive). Anyone have any good resources for such a thing?
My understanding of it currently:
Posited against eros, the life drive, the death drive is a destructive impulse which desires to return things to a prior state, and particularly one of inanimacy. It's used to explain sadism, vandalism and things which spring from them such as war; masochism is explained as a kind of subject/object inversion, where the sadistic impulse becomes direct upon the self. It's supposedly tied intrinsically with sexual desire, which is really perfect for Fight Club in many ways, but I don't have any idea why this should be so -- if someone could explain that, I'd be very appreciative.
Okay... so what did I say in that last paragraph which isn't correct (from a Freudian perspective)? What major aspects am I missing? Any related comments?