i've read this book in a few days ago and i didn't journal it. i was, to some level still am, in a depressive episode currently, so i wanted to read something without the armchair analysis. therefore now that i decided to write on it, it won't be a complete, proper entry, but i wanted to summarise it a bit at least. i got an email from someone who reads this site - very much appreciated! - and enjoys my freudposting, and i decided i wanted to put "beyond the pleasure principle" here for contextualisation, so that - now that i know there are people who aren't personal friends of mine and yet take interest in this - i will put an entry so that people know what i'm referring to if i happen to refer to this in my analysis of reich's fascism book or elsewhere.
back to the list here
book finished on 07.01.2024.
above anything else, this is a late freud book, of the era where he developed his philosophy significantly beyond the psychoanalysis ideas he started out with - oedipus complex and such - and was getting a bit more esoteric. the book, as title indicates, refers to logical loopholes found in theories that attempt to explain everything about human behaviour in terms of pleasure/displeasure, and tackles these loopholes, i.e. repeating dream flashbacks in ptsd that cannot be explained within the bounds of aforementioned principle. the book is relatively heavy on psychoanalytic language as far as freud goes in general, much more than other books of his i've journaled, because it's a part of discussion and targeted towards audiences who are assumed to have a grasp on basic ideas and terms of psychoanalysis and freudism.
in the book he introduces a framework of instincts of death and instincts of life. "instinct" here should be understood broadly because it isn't used in the strictest sense of instincts as simple mental pursuits in animals, but rather in the meaning of "inclination" or "tendency", though it does also include the literal animal "instincts". clarification - freud believes they refer to all life, including life without brains, such as bacteria and isolated cellural entities. freud notices that life in general exhibits a "conservative tendency", which is a tendency a regres back to earlier forms, recreate their developmental journey in phylogensis as part of embryonal development - which is true anyways, a human embryo does early in its development have structures typical for reptiles, fish and other "preceeding" forms, which then either reform or disappear - and repeat itself overall. he notes that most mutations lead to death and extinction, as some are spared only by pure luck from this effect. had he lived a bit later, he would also know over 99% of species that ever existed went extinct. he notes that life necessarily requires imbalance of energy - hence why living organisms have to consume and metabolise - and any system with imbalanced energies is inclined towards releasing it and achieving balance, which equals neutrality, which to freud, inspired by research on microscopic entities in its pioneer forms of early 20th century, equals return to inanimate matter - death. thus he believes anything living has a tendency within itself to make the "least possible effort" and ground itself in whatever its present state is or go back to earlier stages to save energy. here he inclided the force of habit and the inclination - indeed interesting that he described that, though mainly on the example of war ptsd - to repeat one's past trauma.
life, however, has another, more expressive, visible and "spectacular" tendency, which is the tendency to grow, connect and reproduce. again this is something freud observes from single cell organisms up - that elements of organic matter are inclined to connect with each other and create more organic matter as well as bigger and more complex organisations of it, and are also inclined to multiply themselves via reproduction, sexual reproduction being just one kind of it. cells cling to other cells and grow into organisms and organisms grow into colonies, and everything seemingly pursuits a bigger size and more range. although specialisation on the way of darwinist selection limits mindless growth in favour of organisation, it is in general a tendency of living matter to build bigger structures, collectives, and hiveminds. freud considers libido to be a part of this instinct, its expression in an intellectually complex brain of a sexually reproducing primate. he identifies the instinct of life altogether as "eros". it pursues connection with other beings and self-preservation, and opposes as much as possible the inclination towards death. i personally really enjoy the way freud identifies sex with life. there's several relevant things i have to say about this.
firstly - i do acknowledge the existence of what he calls the instinct of death, it's known as entropy, and the default of the universe - i would just call it entropy as applied to organic life, i really don't think it's necessary to create this construct because it can blur the whole theory, but it's important to remember freud lived in late 19th/early 20th century and so his framework for the whole theory is deeply 19th-century-coded, including the dramatic term of instincts of death. freud's "instincts of death" are anyway supposed to be silent while "eros", life, is loud and expresses externally. freud believed only eros is typically "accessible" for deeper research and psychoanalysis, while the "instinct of death" expresses indirectly, i.e. via the sheer force of habit and fear of change, self-destructive tendencies, tendency to repeat trauma etc.
secondly - regarding connecting with others being strictly libidinal, freud believes in such a thing as "libido limited by the nature of object" [possibly flawed translation since i read the book in my native language and not english], basically boils down to the idea that in the cases where sexual attraction can't happen because of limitations such as societal taboos, age, sexuality etc, the libido is instead subverted into "tender" but not "sexual" feelings, intellectualised, processed onto a form of love which isn't to do with sex but comes from the same roots, and that encompasses platonic and familial relationships as well as pursuit of community. for freud, all bonds between human beings are libidinal.
thirdly - freud believed in things such as subvertion (partly "moving" a libido attachment - "cathexis" - from one object or position to another) and sublimation (usage of the energy, tension and emotions that the libido provides to pour it into something else, mainly creative activities). the idea that art is something that results from sublimation was originally invented by schopenhauer, someone freud was hugely inspired by. i personally am also an evolutionary biology nerd and in favour of the theory that says art and human complex intellect originated as results of sexual selection (i wrote about it here, i think it's fairly well backed) and i absolutely adore how freud and schopenahuer captured the inherent connection between art and libido which results from their shared origins, something aforementioned freud and schopenhauer couldn't have been aware of.
fourthly - his theory of life's pursuit to occupy more space and resources and extend itself as much as it has the conditions for overlaps very beautifully with nietzsche's theories on will to power as main drive behind living entities. once again, nietzsche was also influenced by schopenhauer, who had his own theories on immaterial "will" existing within the universe and resulting from its functioning, clearly the ones that inspired these two. i love it when my three favourites overlap, as i keep bringing up.
now: interestingly, freud used his overarching theory to explain sadism and masochism, which he perceives to both be expressions of aforementioned instincts of death - sadism being... a form of projection, that is, reimagining one's internal processes as something external, i.e. perceiving someone else as angry at you because you feel guilty and feel you "deserve it" on some level or because you're angry yourself and inclined to assume the same of them. thus sadism is self-destructive impulses turned outwards, against other people, which is a substitutional way of satisfying desire for self-destruction, and the reason why most sadists are also masochists (sadomasochism) - partial projection of said instinct. sexual sadism and masochism exist there as the "eros" being able to subjugate the destructive instincts to itself, and "use" them in favour of its own interests, which also happens the opposite way around, i.e. via traumagenic responses that concern arousal by one's own traumatic experiences and eroticisation of trauma as well as fear, leading to arousal response to harm and said harm being repeated.
from myself i can only add that fear and arousal are processed by very related if not the same centers in the brain, and there is a direct relation between them on the biochemical level. one of freud's theses from this book is that the "apparatus" of the human psyche operates in terms of economics, locating energy onto various processes, and pursues the lowest tension within the system possible, and if not possible - the highest degree of stability without swings. that is regulated by the aforementioned pleasure principle, further discussed in other books. hence why the activites that lead to release of tension and energy (laughter, crying, sex...) provide the highest amount of pleasure.
out of other interesting things i remember right now: freud believes children have a "natural" sadistic phase of their development, which is the elementary school age when they get fascinated by frying ants with the magnifying glass, squashing bugs, bullying other kids et cetera. sadism later in life is one of multiple cases of systemic or selective regression. aside from that, he discusses his ideas of id, ego and superego in there, and makes the interesting statement that the superego's cruelty reflects not the strict parent's voice, but rather the voice of how the child would like to treat the parent if roles were reversed (although it's obviously related), and the cruelty towards oneself people tend up with is mainly a result of turning against themselves their anger and malice towards caretakers who hurt them.
again: this is to be updated if i remember more of that book, anyways it's really worth reading, although not the beginning book i would recommend to someone who hasn't read freud before and isn't familiar with psychoanalysis.