BE ch 5 nerd wars

[David Morris]

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00666/full#h2
Ego, drives, and the dynamics of internal objects

The precise relationship between the id, ego, and instinctual drives
remains an issue of dispute.

The  id is conceptualized in two (not mutually exclusive) ways: one as the
biological unconscious instinctual drives; the other as that which is
repressed. With the former, the id is “a cauldron full of seething
excitations, primarily concerned with gratification, without regard to
external constraints or possible consequences and, unlike the ego, is only
sensitive to internal stimulation and “has no direct communication with the
external world” (Freud, 1940
<https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00666/full#B58>,
p. 197). The other component of the id is that of the repressed. Freud
(1923b)
<https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00666/full#B48> writes
that “the repressed merges into the id as well, and is merely a part of it”
(p. 24; cf. Freud, 1933
<https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00666/full#B55>,
p. 77). As the repressed, the id consists of all those impulses subjected
to repression.

The most prominent post-Freudian position proposes that the ego is
independent of the instinctual drives […]  The ego has set itself the task
of self-preservation, which the id appears to neglect” (Freud, 1940
<https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00666/full#B58>,
p. 199; cf. Freud, 1923b
<https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00666/full#B48>,
p. 56).


Due to the id’s lack of concern for external reality and safety, the ego
assumes the role of an *executive agent*, attempting to satisfy the id
through activity in the world: “As a frontier-creature, the ego tries to
mediate between the world and the id, to make the id pliable to the world
and, by means of its muscular activity, to make the world fall in with the
repressed wishes of the id”

On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 7:17 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> “each local rep  [of The Man in our brain]  has a cover known as the Ego”
>
> So, let’s dig a little deeper into that pivotal GR quote:
>
> In GR, Pynchon was *immersed* in Norman O Brown’s *Life Against Death,*
> and thus into a deep consideration of Freud’s theories.  If Pynchon says
> that our *Ego* is the Man’s “cover” (a spy’s false identity) inside our
> brain, that’s essentially Pynchon saying that “The Man” inside our brain is
> our *Repressed** Id!!!* That’s what Pynchon is calling the “bad shit”
> which is  *The Man* inside our brain.  (Are you following all that?)
>
> So, calling the emblem of the white albatross “a sign of guilt or
> frustration” isn’t even a pale shadow of what Pynchon meant it to represent
> in GR.  Joe was much closer when he called it “original sin.”  It’s a sign
> of the malignancy of *the repressed Id* in every person’s psyche.  And
> that’s why we can’t shake it.
>
> Like Mark said, it’s not our fault, but we are responsible (for what we do
> with it).
>
> I don’t know how much of GR’s ontology is Pynchon’s, and if it has
> survived into BE.  But I think some of it is and has.
>
> David Morris
>
>
>