Dear Jia,
I agree with Dan completely, with one little addition: Freud explicated his
ideas on repetition compulsion (or the compulsion to repeat) in Beyond the
Pleasure Principle, where he explicitly connects this phenomenon to the
Death Drive.
Zoltan Dragon
>From: "Shaw, Dan" <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Film-Philosophy Salon <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Repetition Compulsion
>Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 16:43:01 -0400
>
>Dear Jia:
>
> Repetition compulsion is at the heart of our instinctual drives for
>Freud. The death instinct, at bottom, seeks to return us to the inorganic
>state from which we began. Essentially, the compulsion to repeat has
>evolutionary implications, for regular, patterned behavior is more likely
>to get us what we want than random actions which are all over the map.
>Hence,we are still habitual creatures, despite our so-called rational
>natures.
>
> Freud's theory implies, e.g., that we have repetitive dreams that
>re-enact traumatic events (or deeply repressed desires) in order to bring
>them back to consciousness and own them as a part of ourselves. His model
>for therapy was to make what is unconscious conscious, as he believed that
>this would relieve the neurotic symptoms with which most of his patients
>were grappling.
>
> As always, the locus classicus for his views on this subject is The
>Interpretation of Dreams, but Instincts and Their Vicissitudes is where he
>best frames his basic proposal that instincts are compulsions to repeat.
>
> I had the distinct pleasure of spending an entire summer reading the
>20 volume Strachey edition of Freud as a research assistant back in my
>graduate school days. It surprises me that so few people have actually
>read Freud,even such a short book as Civilization and Its Discontents. That
>must imply that much of his bad reputation is based merely on hearsay.
>
> The relevance of all this to Wings of Desire (one of my favorite
>movies of all times) is a topic I must consider. My first thought is that
>part of what it means for Damiel to become human is to embrace the death
>wish.
>
>Dan Shaw
>
>
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