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Evil and destructiveness
A psychoanalytic view
What is good is always being destroyed.
D.W. Winnicott, Home is Where We Start From: Essays by a Psychoanalyst
Introduction
Evil is an extreme form of destructiveness that dehumanizes people, reducing them to objects without minds and feelings, to be used by others as means to an end and disregarded as ends in themselves. Evil also entails choice. It is different from an act of nature that arbitrarily wipes out individuals and groups of people. It is an act that targets its victims or class of victims and requires the force of decision.
While evil is by its nature destructive, destructiveness is not necessarily evil. It may be accidental or, if it is premeditated, it may be an act of revenge, self-protection, or the result of unmanageable conflict. At the root of both destructiveness and evil is aggression and sadism, i.e. the pleasure we derive from destructive or harmful acts.
The early history of psychoanalysis was profoundly influenced by both world wars. The large scale destruction and slaughter of World War I raised fundamental questions about human destructiveness. Already struggling to integrate masochism within his theory of the pleasure principle, Freud viewed the destructiveness of war as evidence of an innate death instinct by which we are tragically driven toward destructiveness of others and ourselves. Freud postulated his theory of the death instinct in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, published in 1920. Since this time, the idea of the death instinct has been widely disputed and debunked both philosophically and scientifically.1 The fact that the psychoanalytic community continues to debate its viability signifies that our understanding of the roots of our aggression and destructiveness remains incomplete if not controversial. However, we cannot begin to think about the nature and origin of evil without first addressing the question of our impulse toward both destructiveness and creativity and how the two are inter-related.
Freud postulates that the libido contains the seeds of love and hate. While Freud defined libido specifically as the energy derived from sexual instinct, we can extend the idea that our basic instincts for survival, e.g. hunger, warmth, sex, and so on, are dependent on and cause us to establish relationships and attachments to others. Our first instinctual act can be seen in the infantâs rooting for the breast.
In this introductory chapter, I will focus on Winnicottâs idea that the infantâs act of sucking is a basic, and fundamental, act of aggression that at the same time destroys what it seeks. It is this act of destruction that, paradoxically, leads to an awareness of external reality and otherness and creates the basis for relationship. Winnicottâs observation, âWhat is good is always being destroyedâ (Newman, 1995, p. 160), provides us with a starting point in thinking about the psychological root of evil and our individual capacity to commit evil.
The role of narcissism
Freudâs theory of the death instinct was derived principally from his experience in grappling with repetition compulsion and the negative therapeutic reaction, but he also lays the foundation for the death instinct in early narcissism. Freud first used the phrase ânarcissism of minor differencesâ in his essay titled âThe taboo of virginity,â which he wrote in 1917, toward the end of World War I, in which he observed that â⌠it is precisely the minor differences in people who are otherwise alike that form the basis of feelings of strangeness and hostility between themâ (Freud, 1917, p. 48). Freud subsequently elaborated his ideas on the narcissism of minor differences and applied these to the difference between the sexes and within the context of group psychology.
In his essay, âCivilization and its discontents,â written in 1930, Freud makes the link between narcissism and intolerance explicit. He explains aversion toward strangers as a defensive function of narcissism in the service of self-preservation â but the self-preservation is concerned with fending off or diverting innate aggression into the âotherâ, whether it is an individual or a group. It is also possible to understand innate aggression in terms of an aversion or hostility to strangers as an integral aspect of primary narcissism. The early infantile experience of omnipotent fusion with the other â a return to a homeostatic state â has an enormous pull on us all. We all know what it is to fight against or deny the constraints and separation required by reality. Ron Britton postulates that human beings have âan inbuilt impulse to annihilate othernessâ (Britton, 2003, p. 127). He calls this the âxenocidal impulseâ and argues that it is a component of the destructive instinct, just as the destructive instinct is a necessary component of envy. In its extreme form, the impulse is murderous toward the âotherâ and in its mild form it is merely misanthropic.
While Freud identifies an innate hostility to âothernessâ and regards this as a manifestation of the death instinct, linked directly to narcissism, Andre Green extends this idea to the egoâs resistance to the unconscious. Green states that narcissism binds together the component parts of the ego and provides a âformal identityâ and âsense of existenceâ (Green, 2001, p. ix). In his view, this explains why narcissism is âone of the fiercest forms of resistance to analysisâ (Green, 2001, p. ix). The fundamental âotherâ is the unconscious. As the unconscious is beyond the egoâs control, recognition of its existence is therefore perceived to be a threat to the âempire of the egoâ (Green, 2001, p. ix). However, as Green points out, narcissism also gives the ego a sense of itself as a separate entity, or perhaps what Winnicott would describe as a sense of me. In this respect, narcissism plays a positive role in differentiating self from other and in creating an identity that can tolerate what is other and beyond the control of the ego. This entails the presence of an internal, intermediary space within the mind that can allow for fantasy. When this process goes wrong, the destructive aspect of narcissism, what Green describes as death narcissism, gains the upper hand and develops into a rigid edifice in which aggression can only be used in the service of destroying the other and destroying life itself. There is no internal space available in which a healthy narcissism, or what Green refers to as life narcissism, can develop. In short, there is a huge difference between the sense of me that is derived from and encompasses relation to others from the sense of me that comes about in the absence of relation to others. What determines the balance between life narcissism and death narcissism within the psyche raises the question as to how a space for âothernessâ is created in the first place â or not â and how this affects narcissistic development, not simply in relation to the tolerance of difference, or otherness, but in relation to its incorporation. An integral aspect of this question is the role of aggression in narcissistic formation and the way in which aggression is mediated and experienced.
Destructiveness as primary
Winnicott addresses this question in his, âComments on my paper âthe use of an objectâ â (Winnicott, 1989, p. 238) and arrives at a particular view of aggression and the death instinct, refuting and refining Freudâs earlier views. For Winnicott, it is the destructive impulse or drive that allows the ego to discover âothernessâ through its destruction and hence to discover reality. The necessary ruthlessness of the infant in seeking and attacking the breast is seen by Winnicott as an elementary act of aggression that is essential to the survival of the infant. For the infant, the object does not yet exist in its own right but it is nevertheless there to be used and it is only through the experience of using the object and its consequences that the infant can begin to experience the object as a separate entity and to have a sense of me as a result. In this respect, the infantâs aggression serves to establish not only external reality but the capacity to experience internal psychic space (i.e. the unconscious).
Winnicott describes this process as follows:
Should a philosopher come out of his chair and sit on the floor with his patient, however, he will find that there is an intermediate position. In other words, he will find that after âsubject relates to objectâ comes âsubject destroys objectâ (as it becomes external); and then may come âobject survives destruction by the subject.â But there may or may not be survival. A new feature thus arrives in the theory of object-relating. The subject says to the object: âI destroyed you,â and the object is there to receive the communication. From now on the subject says: âHullo object!â âI destroyed you.â âI love you.â âYou have value for me because of your survival of my destruction of you.â âWhile I am loving you I am all the time destroying you in (unconscious) fantasy.â Here fantasy begins for the individual. The subject can now use the object that has survived. It is important to note that it is not only that the subject destroys the object because the object is placed outside the area of omnipotent control. It is equally significant to state this the other way round and to say that it is the destruction of the object that places the object outside the area of the subjectâs omnipotent controlâŚ. In other words, because of the survival of the object, the subject may now have started to live a life in the world of objects, and so the subject stands to gain immeasurably; but the price has to be paid in acceptance of the ongoing destruction in unconscious fantasy relative to object-relating.
(Winnicott, 1989, pp. 222â223)
Winnicott goes further than Freudâs theory of the death instinct or Brittonâs xenocidal impulse because he sees destructiveness as primary: it is necessary for creating both the experience of externality and the capacity to love. For Winnicott, the destruction of an object is the first creation of an object â as long as it survives â and is categorically different from the aggression experienced at a later stage that is caused by frustration. Destructiveness is a drive that compels the infant to become alive, it is not a reaction to the environment, such as rage with an object that already exists. It is the infantâs aggression that first brings the object into existence as an internal object in (unconscious) fantasy, and in this way object relating is established. This is in contrast to the Kleinian view in which object relations are there from the beginning, the object exists ipso facto, and it is the infantâs innate envy that must be mediated. Hannah Segal, in her seminal paper, âOn the clinical usefulness of the concept of the death instinctâ, states this position very clearly and makes the important link that not only is there an impulse to destroy the object but also to destroy the self that perceives the object so any awareness of otherness is obliterated. She writes: âI think that the destructiveness towards objects is not only a deflection of self-destructiveness to the outside, as described by Freud â important though it is â but that also from the very beginning the wish to annihilate is directed both at the perceiving self and the object perceived, hardly distinguishable from one anotherâ (Segal, 1993, p. 56). Winnicott, however, turns this equation on its head and argues that the object only comes into existence because of the impulse to destroy it. While the object comes into existence in this way, similarly, so does the perceiving self in Winnicottâs formulation. This marks a significant theoretical departure from both Freud and Klein. For Winnicott, aggression is innate and contains within it the libidinal component, the life instinct, in a fusion. Winnicott echoes Plinyâs comment on fire: âWho can say whether in essence fire is constructive or destructive?â (Winnicott, 1989, p. 239).
In writing about Freudâs life and death instincts, Winnicott in his essay âA primary state of beingâ begins with the premise that âat the start (of life) is an essential alonenessâ (Winnicott, 1988, p. 132). Winnicott is also describing a state of oneness with the environment. He explains that âthis aloneness can only take place under maximum conditions of dependenceâ (Winnicott, 1988, p. 132). However, prior to this state of aloneness is what Winnicott refers to as âunalivenessâ. He writes: âthe wish to be dead is commonly a disguised wish to be not yet alive. The experience of first awakening gives the human individual the idea that there is a peaceful state of unaliveness that can be peacefully reached by an extreme regression. Most of what is commonly said and felt about death is about this first state before aliveness, where aloneness is a fact and long before dependence is encounteredâ (Winnicott, 1988, p. 132). Winnicott then goes on to discard Freudâs theory of the life and death instinct except for âthe original ideaâ, i.e. Freudâs formulation of âan inorganic state from which each individual emerges and to which each returns.â Winnicott neatly argues that it is only natural for the human individual to want to return to the state of pre-dependent aloneness and that this state should be linked in our minds with a conception of the âunknowable death that comes after lifeâ (Winnicott, 1988, p. 133).
In this same essay, Winnicott criticizes Freudâs theory of the death instinct and introduces a fresh understanding of the death instinct and destructiveness that is highly relevant today. Winnicott writes:
The recognition of this inherent human experience of pre-dependent aloneness is of immense significance. Freudâs later development of the theory of Life and Death instincts introduces perceived death, the perceived distinction between organic and inorganic states, and even the idea of destructiveness, and at the same time Freud omits reference to the original dependence, double because not yet sensed, and to the gradual sensing and perception of dependence. In the end his theory becomes a false theory of the death that comes as an end to life, and also a theory of aggressiveness which is also false because it avoids two vitally important sources of aggression: that which is inherent in the primitive love impulse (at the pre-ruth stage, apart from reaction to frustration) and that which belongs to the interruption of the continuity of being by impingement that enforces reaction. The development of psycho-analytic theory to cover these (and probably other) early phenomena has perhaps made Freudâs theory of Life and Death instincts redundant, and Freudâs own doubt about the vitality of the theory seems to me to have become more important than the theory itself. It is always possible, however, that I have misunderstood Freudâs true meaning.
If the sequence is to be found, aloneness, double dependence, instinctual impulse in a state prior to ruth, then concern and guilt, it seems not necessary to introduce a âDeath Instinctâ. If on the other hand there is no aggressive element in the primitive love impulse, but only anger at frustration, and if therefore the change from ruthlessness to concern is of no importance, then it is necessary to look round for an alternative theory of aggression, and then the Death Instinct must be re-examined.
(Winnicott, 1988, pp. 133â134)
Winnicott points out the inadequacy of Freudâs idea of the death instinct on the basis that Freud failed to recognize what Winnicott refers to as the âprimitive love impulse.â Winnicott redefines the instincts along ontological and epistemological lines and fundamentally disagrees with Freudâs metapsychological formulation of instinct or âTriebâ. He bases his theory of instinct on his observations of the experiential âneed to beâ and an âinnate tendency towards integrationâ (Fulgencio, 2007, p. 449). Winnicott argues that Freudâs theory of the life and death instincts is redundant, but he then questions this on the premise that we nevertheless need to recognize the importance of the âaggressive elementâ. In this respect, Winnicott calls for a re-examination or a re-formulation of the death instinct. As with Plinyâs observation on fire, the aggressive drive is neither destructive nor creative; it simply is. But in linking the idea of death with aggression, Winnicott unravels a new conceptual thread with which we can approach the idea of the death instinct and which also, most significantly, leads to a theory of the origins of psychosis and the roots of evil. Both of these ideas I will come back to.
Andre Green reiterates Freudâs view that the destructive tendency is characteristic of infantile sexuality. Within the context of drive theory, Green, like Winnicott, argues that aggression and love necessarily go hand in hand and counterbalance one another throughout life (Green, 2001). At one point in âOn the use of an object,â Winnicott refers to this as the âcombined love-strife driveâ (Winnicott, 1989, p. 245). Green also takes care to emphasize the role of Eros in this combined â or as he expressed it âfusedâ â drive, and is highly critical of the Kleinians for their emphasis on destructiveness and their failure to recognize the importance of the pleasure principle (Green, 2001). Winnicott disagreed with Klein who saw the pleasure principle as a survival issue as opposed to a statement of fact. Green asserts that Freudâs theory of drives, including the death drive, the silent partner of the two, became a firm conviction âas a result of clinical experience as well as social phenomenaâ (Green, 2001, p. xi). What we also see from clinical experience is what Green describes as the fusion and de-fusion of the drives, the process of their conjunction and dis-conju...