The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast · Mark Linsenmayer, Wes Alwan, Seth Paskin, Dylan Casey

Ep. 383: Freud on Love and the Primal Horde (Part Two)

·56 min·3 clips

Freud says altruistic and ethical impulses are rooted in hostility and envy.

1. The Partially Examined Life episode 383, part two, closes Freud's Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego by moving from chapter 8 on love and hypnosis into chapter 9 on the herd and chapter 10 on the primal horde. 2. Wes Alwan, Seth Paskin, and Dylan Casey speak as the hosts, and their job is to test Freud against Nietzsche, Hegel, Tomasello, Fonagy, and Korsgaard. 3. The episode asks whether Freud's model explains group life through identification, surrender, and authority, or whether a leading idea can matter more than a person. 4. The hosts say Freud's account is provisional, and they stress that more than 100 years of later thinkers have amended his picture of the psyche. 5. They return to the earlier chapter on "being in love and hypnosis" and say Freud is still trying to flesh out a picture of the human psyche at an early stage. 6. The discussion of chapter 9 centers on William Trotter's "instincts of the herd in peace and war," which Freud treats as too simple. 7. Freud's objection is that children do not just want company; they often react with dread when they see a stranger rather than merely when they are alone. 8. The hosts connect that objection to development, saying children become less shy over time and learn positive feelings toward strangers. 9. The episode then treats identification as the mechanism by which group feeling develops with time rather than arriving fully formed at birth. 10. Seth and Wes distinguish herd language from horde language, arguing that herd animals do not explain mob violence or people dragging others from houses. 11. They emphasize that group cruelty often comes from individual impulses to dominance that get amplified by crowd conditions. 12. The primal-horde section presents a social state ruled by a despotic father who monopolizes the women and prevents his sons from having them. 13. The brothers develop fellow feeling through subservience to the father and later turn against him, which Freud links to the origins of conscience. 14. The hosts repeatedly call this a highly speculative state-of-nature story and compare it to evolutionary accounts involving chimpanzee social organization. 15. They also compare Freud's picture to later ideas about memory and structure, including civilization-like layers that remain active beneath modern life. 16. One striking thread is the claim that altruistic and ethical impulses can emerge from hostility and envy rather than from pure benevolence. 17. Another striking thread is Freud's explanation of why people develop a passion for authority and a thirst for obedience in groups. 18. The tone is analytic and conversational, with the hosts interrupting the argument for comparisons, objections, and examples from hypnosis, nationalism, and Nazi politics. 19. Listeners interested in Freud, social psychology, and political authority will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting a simple summary of Freud without digressions may skip it.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast