Freud's psychoanalytic theory was developed to explain the psychic processes that characterized individual behavior patterns. inserted in a society in which consolidated bourgeois values prevailed and which, although it arose at a determined time and place, it was intended to universal.
Such theory outlined the links libidinal that provided for the existence of civilization in a subhistoric period. Each individual has a principle that tends to be satisfied, which is the principle of pleasure or drive of Eros. There is also another principle that seeks to return to the inorganic state of life or absolute rest. It's called the death principle or drive of Thanatos. Both are unconscious or ID and are characterized by being asocial, amorphous, etc.
Psychoanalysis tries to explain how the formation of the individual's personality or EGO and what is the relationship between this and its interior (ID) and also with the exterior or SUPER EGO. The latter is characterized by presenting itself under the principle of reality that is imposed on the individual in a repressive way (necessary and minimal for organic life to exist). In theory development, this reality principle is presented as the "father" who subjugates the children, imposes on them sexual abstinence (due to the incestuous desire for the mother) and sets the standards to be followed. However, the pleasure principle or the erotic energy of these "children" do not admit, at first, the paternal authority and imposition, and then, the
parricide (action that already seeks freedom – enjoyment of the drives). But without guidance, because they lack sufficient autonomy (the need for the “father”), murderous children re-establish the paternal morals.The obsolescence of this theory is due to the modern ways of life in advanced industrial societies: the father (or the family dominated by he) is no longer the transmitter nucleus of the reality principle that previously subjected, under physical coercion, the subject, making him obedient to such agent. In these societies, children leave home earlier, they can choose their jobs (not inheriting their father's) and there is a lot of sexual “freedom”. There is no longer the father, which makes the theory untenable.
However, Marcuse, despite showing that the theory has become obsolete, outdated in the individual sense, explains its truth in an even more necessary way at the social level. While at the level of the individual and oriented towards therapy (fitting the individual to order), this theory seems inadequate; it may only serve to aid in the understanding of individual psychic processes in advanced industrial societies. This is because in these societies, where the father figure no longer exists, a heteronomous model in relation to the individual is constituted. In mass societies, the historical subject has been replaced by productivity. This is the real source of domination which, once set in motion, has reached a stage in which it moves itself. It is what determines the social values to be followed because it establishes a relationship with individuals. In order to satisfy the basic needs of human beings, over time superfluous needs were created that need to be consumed and that such consumption presents itself as a compensatory satisfaction of the erotic drive energies, making one believe that one is free to be able to obtain goods (just see the advertisements for Honda, Coca-Cola, Volksvagem, for example, in which the idea of freedom is associated with just acquiring such product!).
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
Therefore, there is no dominant subject. There is indeed an amorphous mass that oscillates between fungible products that need leaders and these, in a secondary way (since the productive system is dominant) are also fungible and superfluous. These leaders or groups to which a certain collective mass belong establish sentimental bonds with their individuals and the identification of the EGO with the father is replaced by the identification with the EGO collective. The problem is the imbalance between the two drives. If the drive of Eros is altered, that of Thanatos is overloaded, which generates a large amount of accumulated aggressive destructive energy that is archetypally redirected to an enemy built. It is the risk of irrationality that forms the affluent societies where the maintenance of the alienated production system takes place by camouflaged repression that causes the belligerent state of permanent character and in which other social agents are trainers of behavior.
By João Francisco P. Cabral
Brazil School Collaborator
Graduated in Philosophy from the Federal University of Uberlândia - UFU
Master's student in Philosophy at the State University of Campinas - UNICAMP
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
CABRAL, João Francisco Pereira. "The obsolescence of psychoanalysis and its consequences for the notion of the individual in Hebert Marcuse"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/filosofia/a-obsolescencia-psicanalise-as-suas-consequencias.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
