''Thoughts for the Time of War and Death'' (german: Zeitgemäßes über Krieg und Tod) is a set of twin essays written by
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
in 1915, six months after the outbreak of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. The essays express discontent and disillusionment with
human nature
Human nature is a concept that denotes the fundamental dispositions and characteristics—including ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—that humans are said to have naturally. The term is often used to denote the essence of humankind, or ...
and human society in the aftermath of the
hostilities
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
; and generated much interest among lay readers of Freud.
Disillusionment
The first essay addressed the widespread disillusionment brought on by the collapse of the
Pax Britannica
''Pax Britannica'' (Latin for "British Peace", modelled after '' Pax Romana'') was the period of relative peace between the great powers during which the British Empire became the global hegemonic power and adopted the role of a " global pol ...
of the preceding century—what Freud called "the common civilization of peacetime."
Discounting death
The second essay addressed what Freud called the peacetime '
protection racket
A protection racket is a type of racket and a scheme of organized crime perpetrated by a potentially hazardous organized crime group that generally guarantees protection outside the sanction of the law to another entity or individual from viol ...
' whereby the inevitability of death was expunged from civilized mentality. Building on the second essay of ''
Totem and Taboo
''Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics'', or ''Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics'', (german: Totem und Tabu: Einige Übereinstimmungen im Seelenl ...
'', Freud argued that such an attitude left civilians in particular unprepared for the stark horror of industrial-scale death in the Great War.
Influence
Freud's account of the centrality of loss in culture has been seen as seminal for his later work, ''
Civilization and its Discontents
''Civilization and Its Discontents'' is a book by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. It was written in 1929 and first published in German in 1930 as ''Das Unbehagen in der Kultur'' ("The Uneasiness in Civilization"). Exploring what Fre ...
''.
[A. Drassinower, ''Freud's Theory of Culture'' (2003)]
See also
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Death drive
In classical Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the death drive (german: Todestrieb) is the drive toward death and destruction, often expressed through behaviors such as aggression, repetition compulsion, and self-destructiveness.Eric Berne, '' ...
*''
Goodbye to All That
''Good-Bye to All That'' is an autobiography by Robert Graves which first appeared in 1929, when the author was 34 years old. "It was my bitter leave-taking of England," he wrote in a prologue to the revised second edition of 1957, "where I ha ...
''
*
Homo homini lupus
''Homo homini lupus'', or in its unabridged form ''Homo homini lupus est'', is a Latin proverb meaning "A man is a wolf to another man," or more tersely "Man is wolf to man." It has meaning in reference to situations where people are known to ...
References
Further reading
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* Robert Wohl, ''The Generation of 1914'' (1979)
External links
*
A copy of the text
{{Sigmund Freud
1915 essays
Essays by Sigmund Freud