The Analytic Foundations of Social Violence

Charles C. Lemert, Wesleyan University

Abstract

Although questioning Freud's use of the dual drive theory to explain the struggles he saw in society as a whole, the author praises Freud for his awareness of the inherent violence in modern civilization. The author traces the development of social violence from 1500, the beginning of European exploration in the New World, through the World Wars of the twentieth century. He explains that, strictly speaking, analysis is an incising operation that was foundational to the early modern world, the effects of which are evident today on the psyches and bodies of those who are victims of this incision, this cutting-out.