In ‘Civilization and Its Discontents,’ Sigmund Freud presents a common view of human nature: ‘Homo homini lupus’ (man is a wolf to man). Civilization, according to Freud, works tirelessly to curb our aggressive instincts through love, sexual repression, and moral ideals, albeit with limited success.
The issue arises when considering the agents of civilisation – the enforcers of societal norms and prohibitions. Are these agents driven by the same aggressive instincts, or have they transcended them?
This paradox relates to Freud’s concept of reaction-formation, where repressed wishes are replaced with their opposites: for example, when an angry teacher scolds a child for hitting or bullying another, the teacher might be dealing with a repressed aspect of herself that she has projected onto her pupils. Indeed, a nation’s compulsory schooling system is composed of individuals who seek to educate and civilise children and their families, but they do so coercively and inflexibly.
Thus, the very efforts to civilise may be manifestations of repressed aggression, projected onto others, especially children. Caregivers’ efforts to control aggression might inadvertently perpetuate or even amplify these instincts in a vicious cycle. Eventually, the children become teachers or politicians who believe that they must control the aggressive impulses of citizens or other nations.
Freud’s true copernican revolution
Jean Laplanche’s theories, particularly regarding the unconscious and its formation in relation to the ‘other,’ contrast with Freud’s views. While Freud does not explicitly locate the unconscious in the adult other, Laplanche emphasises the intergenerational transmission of psychological content.
Central to Laplanche’s theory is the notion of the ‘enigmatic signifier,’ which refers to the way adults unknowingly transmit unconscious, repressed, or unsymbolised desires and impulses to children. This transmission occurs through interactions that are laden with unconscious meanings, which the child then must interpret and integrate, leading to the formation of their own unconscious.
In the context of human nature and political philosophy, Laplanche’s revision of Freud’s views provides a logical understanding of society’s historical failures and incompleteness. It is not the case that children or uncivilised people are aggressive and must be tamed; rather, there is an aggressive aspect to civilisation and, more generally, to domestication. Unlike other animals, humans go after members of their own or other species, such as dogs, with an intention of shaping their behaviour. This, clearly, is not always for the good of those others.