Beyond the Limit of the Death Drive

Abstract

This chapter offers a detailed account of the philosophical and political implications of the death drive. The author reads Freud himself as well as commentators including Paul Ricoeur, Herbert Marcuse, and Julia Kristeva in order to locate some alternative paths or “detours” for the death drive. These are, according to the author, ways in which this drive can be redirected rather than repressed or denied. They open onto possibilities for erotic cohabitation and less cruel forms of coexistence. Sublimation and humor are two key means of rerouting the death drive, the author argues, and they can point the way to erotic alternatives, including the formation of “erotic battalions” of the kind envisioned in the author’s Postscript “Toward a Community of Duelists.”

Eros and the nature of ‘interest’

“…There are other places to look, however, for a less stable understanding of Eros (Ruiz, 2021). For instance, in her treatise on The Erotic, psychoanalyst Lou Andreas Salomé brought into a different kind of relief the hinges connecting each mind-body (or self) to a broader human community (others).…”