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Late in life and summing up, returning still again to his controversial theory of a death drive, Freud notes with his wry, deprecating tone in New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis: “The theory of instincts is so to say our mythology” (Freud 1932, 95). Here is the valedictory big picture from the master, and Holowchak and Lavin pick up the narrative:
This new view of drives, noted Freud, met with rapid opposition—a sign of a strong affective resistance, and for a good reason. Why, asked Freud rhetorically, has psychoanalysis taken so long to recognize that death drive, if it is so fundamental? That is on account of the naïve human belief that humans “are naturally good or at least good-natured.” Yet that view flies in the face of history. (94–95)
The face of history, indeed. Even as he writes his overview, Freud’s world is again hurtling into unthinkable destruction and chaos, the irrational repetitions made new with the technologies of war. “So to say our mythology,” then, is dark irony to choke on: who are we to argue with both Freud and history about murderous human nature? And yet this is precisely the challenge of Holowchak and Lavin's book: to reargue Freud's unfolding logic and to offer alternative possibilities.
As a reader of this new book on the history of Freud's conception of the death drive, I often paused to wonder what Freud would now think about our unfolding historical moment with the rise again of international civic disorder, vicious nationalism, and breathtaking nastiness of spirit. Nearly a century later—and despite Freud's warning—did we get caught naïve again? Though this book scours his words, Freud remains a silent presence hovering over this ongoing debate. We wish he could join the conversation. How do we now square our historical moment with our contemporary clinical-theoretical controversies?
When I finished this book, I had learned a great deal, particularly from being immersed in the thought processes of an extraordinary inquiry int