David Peat

Pausing the Cosmos 191When destructive behavior is observed in others we turn to thepsychologist and psychiatrist for a diagnosis. Freud argued that reason,the supposed firm foundation on which a rational society is based, isno more than the surface of a vast ocean of the unconscious, a hiddenregion of impulses and desires. The forces of this unconscious constantlythreaten to break through into our waking life.Humans are driven by the forces of Eros—the libido or life instinctwith its drive for pleasure, sexual release, and survival. But thereis also a counterforce, that of Thanatos, or the Death Wish, that seeksresolution to all of life’s tensions by returning to an undifferentiated,inanimate state of death. Thanatos and Eros form a duality in constantconflict within individuals and societies.Toward the end of his life in 1930, while suffering from cancer ofthe jaw, Freud explored the conflict between Eros and Thanatos in hisdeeply pessimistic Civilization and Its Discontents. Freud ascribed theoceanic feeling of oneness, common to mystic states and at the heart ofall religions, as a desire to return to the helpless infantile state of totalidentification with the mother. He believed that there could be no resolutionof this yearning for a return to an undifferentiated state. Unlikethe Oedipus complex, which can be worked through in psychoanalysis,there is no “cure” for this desire to resolve all tensions throughdeath. It is common to all human beings and underlies all societies,where it constantly threatens to erupt into profoundly disruptive behavior.The tension between civilization and nature (in the form of ourdeepest drives) is irresolvable. According to Freud, it is for this reasonthat there can never be a truly ideal society or unalloyed human happinessand harmony. It may be the case that extreme poverty, social injustice,and political inequality trigger outbreaks of violence and tensions.Yet the deeper origin of such tensions lies with Thanatos, thedeath wish that is projected outward onto nations, racial groups, andindividuals. Because Eros and Thanatos are irreconcilable, human guiltand the absence of total happiness are inevitable. All forms of civilizationsare, at their core base, a thwarting of our most basic drives anddesires.Much of Freud has been discredited, or subject to a radical reread-