Globalisation, War and the Death Drive

Abstract

This paper deals with the psychoanalytical conception of aggressivity,
destruction and war in relation to the contemporary context of the
globalisation process. The destructive tendencies are interpreted with the
help of the psychoanalytical theory of the paranoid-schizoid position. The
paper plays o! Patočka's "heretic" conception of war as something
meaningful and meaning-giving against the Freudian conception of war as
one of several ways in which the death drive may be externalised. It
examines the possibilities of Freudian determinism and instinctivism to
handle human destructivity. It suggests that something like a "destructive
revolution", which would be analogous to the 20th century sexual
revolution, is needed in order to reduce the contemporary international
tension.