Civilization And Its Discontents: An Ongoing Update. Part 1: The Death Penalty

The original project of psychoanalysis included an active, and radical, inquiry regarding the dynamics binding clinical to cultural phenomena, problems of self-regulation to problems of social regulation. Of course, much about psychoanalysis has changed during the course of its first century. Not least of those changes has been a narrowing of its focus, a move away from the public sphere and toward a reconceptualized, and less permeable, consulting room. That move has not been complete; the consulting room still resonates with the sounds of the street. Within psychoanalysis, the force of its broad original program of inquiry has been most energetically sustained in recent years by feminist, gay, and lesbian critique. This series of articles, each of which will be a psychoanalytic reaction to contemporary developments, aims to participate in and broaden the reach of that critique, while serving as a reminder of the potentially vital place psychoanalysis might still claim in the pertinent discourses of everyday life.

Arguments supporting the death penalty revolve around two axes: deterrence and retribution. While deterrence appeals to the logic of straightforward instrumentality—aiming directly at material reality and promising reduced homicide rates—retribution appeals to the logic of the imagination. The argument for retribution is self-legitimating, driven by and beholden to a sense of inner necessity. Its promise is not material effectiveness,