War in Freud: Between hyper-sophistication and archaic violence

Abstract

This essay seeks to explicate an intuition shared by Freud and Derrida: how technological hyper-sophistication is linked to archaic violence in wars. Freud tackles war from two standpoints that will be brought up to date through deconstruction. First, the realization that violence is not external to life but essential to it. In that sense, civilization may be defined as a pharmakon that protects life as much as it attacks it.

Second, a critical examination of civilization by addressing cruelty and the drive toward destruction as present in wars, with the result that the promises of civilized life become illusions. Through an analysis of the hyper-sophistication of archaic violence, I will further explore the way Freud examines ideology and the discourse of war so far as to criticize objectivity and scientific knowledge place at the disposal of violence.