What About Me?: The Struggle for Identity in a Market-Based Society

by Paul Verhaeghe

  Pleasure

  At an organic level, the body functions as an arena of energetic tension, and our subjective experience of this is dominated by two emotions. Freud referred to one of these as Lust, meaning desire (in a very general sense) or, simply, inclination. In this context, it is often translated as ‘pleasure’. The other he called Unlust, unpleasure. Towards the end of his life, Freud regarded the dilemma of the pleasure principle — the drive that causes us to seek pleasure — as the thorniest issue in the whole field of psychology. First and foremost, how exactly should pleasure be defined? And, second, given that everyone wants as much pleasure as possible, how should it be regulated?

  Freud’s initial solution was typically male. He defined pleasure as the discharge of tension, most powerfully illustrated by the orgasm. The build-up of tension, on the other hand, was defined as unpleasurable. Like a pressure cooker, man needed to let off steam. One of Freud’s female colleagues, the famous Lou Andreas-Salomé, reprimanded him, pointing out that the build-up of tension can be very pleasant, and that its discharge isn’t always nice. Moreover, the less tension there is, the closer someone is to death. Defining pleasure apparently isn’t so simple: pleasure and unpleasure can be strangely intermingled. In his consulting room, Freud was to discover something else: people respond very ambiguously to pleasure, with guilt and even self-imposed prohibitions being by no means uncommon.

  It’s easy to find an explanation for this in the times in which he lived. In the Victorian era, just about everything was forbidden, so people were sexually inhibited. They could find almost no release for their tensions; and when they did, they felt ashamed. So the naïve conclusion is that society is bad (because of its frustrating influence), and individuals are good (being unspoilt in a natural state). Actually, a contrast of this kind is nowhere to be found in Freud’s writings. His view is much more complex, and incorporates an important theory on relations between individuals and cultures.

  It’s a theory that seems to me exactly the opposite of what is popularly ascribed to Freud. We are led to believe that he regarded any kind of social suppression of sexuality as unhealthy, even unnatural. Yet his writings reveal a very different view. Organisms have an internal brake with which to inhibit their urges and instincts. In the case of humans, this internal inhibitor has been given external shape in the form of a social code of behaviour. In the Vienna of the Victorian period, social mores were, to put it bluntly, hypocritical and harmful, and Freud takes up ethical cudgels against them — but that did not mean he was in favour of abolishing all restraints. The goal of his treatment sounds as sober as it is moralistic:

  The instincts which were formerly suppressed remain suppressed; but the same effect is produced in a different way. Analysis replaces the process of repression, which is an automatic and excessive one, by a temperate and purposeful control on the part of the highest agencies of the mind. In a word, analysis replaces repression by condemnation.4

  This quotation shows that Freud thought it necessary for us to control our urges. He also makes a clear Aristotelian link between self-knowledge and self-control.

  Towards the end of his working life, Freud came to see that internal brake as a product of the constant intermingling of life and death urges. Each kept the other in check, jointly shaping life at every level, from individuals to society. He regarded this intermingling as a given, as something inherent to our nature. At the end of his own career, the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan was to take up Freud’s conclusion, and to express it more strongly. He got around the difficulty of defining pleasure by using the extremely ambiguous concept of jouissance, which stands for both pleasure and pain. Each organism possesses an internal inhibitor for jouissance, because it would otherwise very soon die. People externalise that brake, and give it collective shape through social organisation. Although such organisation can vary considerably, an authority function is always installed to restrict and allocate pleasure. Traditionally, this authority is vested in the father, who thus represents a set of social rules to which he himself is subject.

  Pleasure is not about the eternally sensual individual versus the eternally curbing society. Their clinical experience taught both Freud and Lacan that individuals need their urges to be regulated, and that their social organisation expresses that need. The specific form this takes determines what is specific about a community. The notion of humanity ‘in a state of nature’ is nonsense, as all anthropological studies show. There is no such thing as a community without rules, and so-called primitive societies are invariably much more strictly regulated than postmodern Western society. Anthropology also teaches something else: a society is a community precisely by virtue of its dos and don’ts. Social rules determine the distribution of food and sex on the basis of co-operation and family ties. Just about all other norms and values follow on in the wake of that distribution. In a postmodern society the emphasis has shifted to the distribution of money, but you don’t need to be an economist to see how that, too, can be traced back to food and sex.

  From a psychoanalytical perspective, we can draw an important conclusion here. It follows from the above that we can never make a naïve choice for the individual and against society, or conversely, for society and against the individual. We cannot do this, because we know that their apparent opposition cloaks mutual dependency. That does not detract from the fact that we, just like Freud, can take clear ethical stances about certain relationships between society and citizens.

  INTERMEZZO

  SOCIETY AND DISORDERS

  The social shape given to internal restraint can differ greatly, and it changes over time. There are no absolute rules, with the exception of the universal ban on incest. All other norms are largely arbitrary. I say ‘arbitrary’ because we must not lose sight of the main conclusion, which is that rules are universal. Their arbitrary nature — Why should I fast for 40 days? Why do I have to wait till I get married to have sex? Why can’t I smoke a joint when I’m allowed to drink? — has led some to conclude that we could manage just as well without them, arguing that our capacity for reason will cause us to make the right decisions. In practice, throwing traditional norms and values overboard results not in perfect freedom and relationships based on reason, but in chaos and fear.

  The above implies something that conflicts with the notion of an innate identity. If societies can differ greatly in the way they organise social relationships and perceive norms and values, they can also produce very differing identities.

  Differences between cultures and thus between identities often give rise to an us-versus-them way of thinking, whereby we forget that ‘we’ are subject to change. Yet if we compare today’s identity with that of two generations ago, we see quite radical differences in crucial areas such as authority, sexuality, upbringing, and labour organisation. Drastic social changes invariably cause a metamorphosis in identity. We aren’t aware of this, however. We think that there is such a thing as ‘a Belgian’ or ‘an Australian’, and that these are fixed concepts.

  In order to make my point I shall put it crudely: the average Belgian or Australian of days gone by had more in common with contemporary Muslims than with the Belgians or Australians of today. The current jeremiad about the loss of norms and values, and the loss of ‘our’ identity, illustrates how we refuse to accept that our norms and values have changed, along with that identity.

  This brings me to my field, the ‘psy sciences’, which now permeates almost every sphere of life. If a society determines social relationships along with norms and values, then in addition to ‘normal’ identity, society also determines disorders and deviations. Many readers will doubtless find this a dusty old Freudian approach, arguing that there is a medical explanation for such things. Surely psychiatric disorders are diseases originating in the genes and the brain? This notion dominates current thinking, but how much truth is there in it? The fact that genetic factors play a role in a limited number of psychiatric disorders has been more or less est
ablished. The rest is conjecture. Moreover, to define something as mentally abnormal is merely to say that it deviates from the norm — that is to say, the social norm. To this day, no single scientific study has succeeded in distinguishing between what is mentally normal and abnormal without using social criteria. To resort to professional jargon: there are no biological ‘markers’. The current hype surrounding neurobiology and the brain conceals this failure, and the general belief in neurobiology says much about our need for justification: I can’t do anything about it — it’s in my genes; it’s in my brain. The need we clearly have for excuses of this kind shows the extent to which we feel accused.

  Since societies have different norms, they also define deviations differently. Which allows me to bring Freud back into the picture. Mental disorders are also, even primarily, moral disorders. ‘Patients’ no longer comply with the dominant norms and values of their society, causing suffering to themselves and/or others. The disorders that Freud charted were typical of the Victorian age in which he lived, and along with that era have largely disappeared.

  In Freud’s day, society was highly patriarchal, the focus being on the obligations of the individual and on responsibility towards the group. Opposition to this mindset arose in the latter half of the 20th century, leading to the liberation of the individual and a decline in the importance of the group. This shift is reflected by evolution in the field of law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) was primarily intended to benefit certain groups (women, children, and workers) as well as to enshrine common interests (such as the right to education and health care). From the 1960s, the civil-rights movement opposed almost any form of authority with increasing vigour, calling for greater freedom, not so much for certain groups, but first and foremost for individuals. It was the age of the autonomous self and the authentic personality, preferably with as many rights as possible. Obligations were transferred to the community.

  People were still consulting psychiatrists, and their problems did not differ essentially from those of Freud’s day. The difference lay in the fact that they expected and got different answers. It was the heyday of flower power and gurus. Psychotherapy was all about universal liberation. Within a relatively short space of time, the patriarchal stress on obligations was replaced by what Peter Sloterdijk has called ‘the paradise of entitlement’. Its effects were most marked in the 1970s, when Western European societies were constellations of individuals who took the welfare state and their own rights very much for granted.

  These days, the fashion is to decry this attitude, wagging the finger at the layabout hippies of 1968. The pendulum has swung too far, it is claimed; we urgently need to return to norms and values, we can’t go on like this, et cetera. The left-wing welfare state has become the source of all evil, and until recently right-wing to extreme-right-wing parties were gaining ground throughout Western Europe.

  I have a different explanation. What we are experiencing today are the consequences of a new social model that has produced a new identity with different norms and values. In a consciously provocative move, I have dubbed it ‘Enron society’. Its most marked characteristic is depressive pleasure-seeking on credit.

  FIVE

  ENRON SOCIETY

  ‘May you live in interesting times.’ The ambiguity of this supposed Chinese curse is very applicable in this day and age. Western countries are seeing their economies decline, and unemployment rise; some are even going bankrupt. The main political response is to retrench, axe the social safety net, and crack down on ‘scroungers’, creating the impression that the crisis is due to high wages, early pensions, and the work-shy. In Belgium, the Flemings blame the Walloons; in the Netherlands and parts of Australia, migrants and asylum-seekers are the scapegoats. The younger generation thinks baby boomers are to blame, while a taxi driver in Dublin explained to me at great length that it’s all the fault of women. And when it comes to austerity measures, the only thing we all agree is that it’s somebody else who should tighten their belts.

  Today’s obsession with the economy makes us forget that not so long ago, our attention was focused on other problems. Like the huge rise in mental disorders, for instance, almost always linked to the soaring divorce rate and the breakdown of traditional upbringing, and discussed in the same breath as problems such as bullying, the increase in drug abuse, and young looters in London — in short, the norms-and-values debate, with the question of ‘our’ identity always in the background.

  Meanwhile, we increasingly live in a virtual world, and, according to some, the economic crisis has more virtual than real causes. It cannot be denied that we in the West have lived in ‘the best of all possible worlds’ for over half a century. This is without doubt the greatest paradox of our time. Education is available to all. Newspapers can report what they want. Our medical and social care is among the best in the world. We are highly educated, we live healthily for much longer, we can express our opinions freely, and we enjoy an unprecedented level of material comfort. In a welfare paradox, medical conditions that were formerly the privilege of the upper class — such as diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease — are now endemic in the lower social strata.

  To sum up: never before have we in the West had it so good, and never have we felt so bad. An explanation is needed, and the easiest answer is to blame someone else. If our constant laments reveal anything, it’s that postmodern humanity has lost the ability to cope with adversity. In every café you’ll find someone blaming today’s ills on spoilt children, malingerers, and scroungers — making the old chaps at the bar nostalgic for the war, when there were at least real problems to deal. The discussion then usually turns to the moral decadence of the present era, and the urgent need to do something about it. The rot set in during the 1960s; a return to traditional values is called for.

  Pub philosophy of this kind finds a ready ear, even among intellectuals — for me, the umpteenth proof that human reason is merely a thin veneer coating primitive fears, especially when our security is threatened. This explains the success of Theodore Dalrymple and his ilk. (His real name is Anthony Daniels, but he, too, appears to have a problem with identity.) In his well-attended lectures and numerous publications, Dalrymple lashes out at the welfare state with powerful rhetoric. His stance is extremely simple, not to say simplistic. The many problems we face spring from the sense of entitlement bred by present-day society, particularly the health sector, which puts people in the passive role of patients, causing them to abdicate responsibility. Stop whingeing and take action, is his message.

  At times of crisis, appeals such as these will always find an audience, especially when they proceed from the mouth of a gifted speaker who lards his arguments with anecdotal evidence. Yet it is very easy to refute his theory. The welfare state, which Dalrymple regards as the source of all evil, fell apart in his own country (Britain) back in the 1990s, while the British healthcare sector is currently in dire straits.* The Western country that most closely approaches his ideal — that is, the opposite of a welfare state — is also the country that combines the highest incidence of medical, psychosocial, and mental disorders with the largest prison population: namely, the United States.1 That our medical and social safety net is exploited and abused is undoubtedly true; everyone can cite examples. But it would seem to me rather difficult to attribute the steadily increasing incidence of suicides among adults, and so-called behavioural disorders among children, to skiving and scrounging.

  [* By way of illustration: ‘The Care Quality Commission, which monitors the quality of care in Britain, found that the care of the elderly was so poor in one in ten hospitals as to constitute a criminal offence. It noted a “systematic” lack of basic care, i.e. helping patients to eat or drink, alleviating their pain, assisting them to go to the toilet, etc.’ (NRC Handelsblad, 2 February 2012.)

  A second explanation for our sense of malaise traces the problem much further back in time. The philosopher Jean-François Lyotard — an icon of the Ma
y 1968 French protests — ascribed it to the collapse of the ‘Grand Narrative’. For centuries, religion and ideology provided a source of common identity, centring on ethics and a shared sense of meaning; their loss has created a vacuum. Taking a similar line of reasoning, moral philosophers lay the blame at the door of the Enlightenment, and the soulless, instrumental rationality that it brought forth. Their conclusion is that modern man has nothing left to believe in, depriving us of anchoring points for identity. So it’s hardly surprising that so many problems have arisen. Their proposed solution is to construct a new grand narrative in which we can all believe and from which we can derive a new identity (‘Gandalf for president!’). The problem is that we don’t really know how we could devise, let alone impose, a load-bearing narrative of this kind.

  The new narrative: neo-liberalism

  The second explanation is more solidly underpinned than the first, and honesty compels me to admit that I, too, was seduced by it for a while. But then I realised that both explanations boil down to the same view: things were better in the old days. The widespread acceptance of this notion painfully illustrates how unreliable our memories are, and what an overly romantic view we have of the past. Meanwhile, I have discovered a more likely explanation — by which I mean that it ties in well with the way our identity is formed. It even has a built-in explanation for why it’s hard to spot.

  If a great many people are extremely disenchanted with the identity of their fellow beings and want things to go back to how they were, this can only mean one thing: these days, a new identity is setting the tone. This, in turn, means that a new, dominant narrative has taken over, in which the new identity is mirroring itself. And the reason it’s hard to spot is because of its very dominance. An identity-conferring narrative only becomes visible as narrative when it ceases to be coercive. We recently experienced this in the West in the case of religion: while the Christian narrative was coercive, narrative and reality coincided. Only when secularisation took hold did it become visible as narrative, leaving the older generation feeling duped. As long as narrative and reality coincide, most people conflate the two. ‘Get real’ means something like, ‘Adapt to the new norm of the new narrative, because that’s the reality.’