Moving Graveyards: Herbert Marcuse and the Death Instinct

Abstract

In the previous chapters, it was noted that while seeking expression both the life and death instincts are subject to repressive psycho-dynamics that are culturally shaped. We noted, for example, that Freud (1923/1984) clearly acknowledged the cultural milieu as being incorporated in unconscious psychodynamic processes when he put forward the notion of the super-ego (both the repressive and ideal aspects) and in his description of the operation of the ego that, he argued, acts in accordance with a ‘reality principle’. These acknowledgements were a significant clue for some social commentators in their quest to understand the manner in which the unconscious was “so easily subject to social management” (Marcuse, 1965/2001, p. 88). It also held the clue to how individuals become willing participants in their own subservience. The manner in which the energy of Thanatos is amenable and open to social and cultural influence is also a significant contextual issue in the reading of leadership and management behaviours that are enacted in work organisations.