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Freud On the Problem of Order: the Revival of Hobbes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Michael Weinstein  and
Deena Weinstein
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In Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego Freud addresses the problem of how groups are formed or of how society is possible. The question of the possibility of society presupposes that in some sense human beings are not thoroughly social beings, that they must agree to or be made to participate in a common life in which they submit to general principles regulating their conduct towards one another. The notion that the grounds for social order cannot be taken for granted originates in the beginnings of modern thought, particularly in Hobbes’ Leviathan, in which the classical idea that human beings are essentially social and political animals is rejected in favor of the view that the individual is in a basic sense independent of society and opposed to it, and that society is merely a conventional unity. For Hobbes, society is primarily a defensive alliance guaranteed by fear of a sovereign who constitutes a legal order. Social order, then, is imposed externally on the individual, who submits to regulation only on the basis of prudence. The history of thought about the problem of order after Hobbes’ initial attempt to resolve it is a development of more refined motives for obedience, which culminates in Kant's notion of a self-legislated moral law. The importance of Kant's solution is that it provides a positive ground for society. Human beings do not merely submit to standards because they are inclined to, either out of fear or out of desire, but because they acknowledge a rational principle to which they give their voluntary assent. For Hobbes, society is at least an imposition and at most an expedient. For Kant, society may, indeed, be both an imposition and an expedient, but it is also an order of life that might be perfected. In Kant's view, human beings are imperfectly rational beings, not organisms entirely ruled by pleasure and pain, as they were for Hobbes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 27 , Issue 108 , December 1979 , pp. 39 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © 1979 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego; James Strachey, transl. New York, Bantam Books, 1965, p. 31.

2 Ibid., pp. 41-42.

3 Ibid., p. 42. Contrast Freud's view that conflict arises from differences with Georg Simmel's corrective: "On the contrary, the break can result from so great a similarity of characteristics, leanings, and convictions that the di vergence over a very insignificant point makes itself felt in its sharp contrast as something utterly unbearable." Simmel, of course, may be interpreted to be saying the same thing as Freud; that we are so narcissistic that the slightest difference actuates aversion. However, differences are imbedded in similarities for Simmel while they are not for Freud. See: Georg Simmel On Individuality and Social Forms; Donald N. Levine, ed., Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1971, p. 91.

4 It is not the purpose of this discussion to psychoanalyze Freud, but we may note in passing that Freud's privileging of the mother-son relation may reveal his deification of the mother, who, far from being merely a sex object for the male child is, for the unconscious Freud, the source of authority. The notion that the mother has it better than anyone else may also disclose ressentiment against women on Freud's part. Perhaps, then, Freud's entire descriptive psychiatry is an elaborate rationalization for his being rejected by his mother. Were this the case, his subsequent deification of the father would merely be a justification of the object choice that was forced upon him by his mother's rejection.

5 Freud, Group Psychology, p. 43.

6 Ibid., p. 57.

7 We may note that, at least from a biological viewpoint, instincts need not manifest themselves in an animal's infancy, but may appear later in the course oi development. Hence, Freud's argument is biologically inconclusive.

8 Freud, Group Psychology, pp. 65-66.

9 Ibid., p. 66.

10 Ibid., p. 67.

11 Ibid., p. 71.

12 Ibid., p. 86.

13 Ibid., p. 87.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid., p. xiv.