Within the individual there is a constant, shifting, chaotic mix of desires (drive derivatives) out of which, in relation to the inhibitions and demands of the Conscience (Superego) and mediated by the Ego (the executive functions of the personality) emerges overt behavior. When there is more libidinal drive in the mix, one can express loving and creative desires; when aggression or Thanatos predominates, the behavior that results aims at domination, control, destruction. One attribute of drives, as already mentioned, is that they exert their influence out of the awareness of the individual; drives are unconscious. The drive's pressure for gratification is expressed through pathways that are compromises between various desires. If you are angry at someone you love, Thanatos would press for you to attack them and hurt them, but Libido would protect them from your rage. The outcome could then be an angry word rather than a punch.
Another interesting and important aspect of drives is that the object of the drive is the most variable and fluid component of the drive-gratification construct. The drive presses for discharge but many possible objects can gratify the drive. Libido (always with some admixture of Thanatos) is gratified when one masturbates to a fantasy (where the object of the drive is the self), or has sex with a stranger (typically a need satisfying object), or a loved spouse (a complete, three dimensional object of one's affections.) The difference in choice of objects has to do with the relative amounts of aggression and the unconscious fantasies involved, and a host of other issues. The important point is that all the drive "cares" about is discharge; the particular form and nature of the discharge is unimportant to the Id from which the drives emerge. In the same fashion, Thanatos can be directed toward others, leavened with some amount of Libido, or at the self; when it is directed at the self, masochism, depression, suicide may ensue. As one proceeds through the life cycle, the fundamental relationship between Thanatos and Libido shifts in certain predictable ways. When a person is young and developing, they are "full of life" and have their "whole life in front of them." The young adult is focused on building a life, finding a partner, and eventually bringing new life into the world. Their focus is primarily on Libidinal processes. While Thanatos has its place and is always an active presence, it is overshadowed by the derivatives of the libidinal drive. By mid-life, the balance is shifting. The middle aged adult is no longer building a life, but trying to hold onto their earlier vitality. While there is often great inner peace in progressing past the times when one was caught up in the competition and chaos of the "rat race", the sense is of a slow, inexorable progression into senescence. The body is getting tired; muscles are no longer as powerful or as lithe; the mind is not as sharp and vigorous. By one's twilight years, a person makes peace with their approaching death, as Thanatos finally finds its full expression. This is the life cycle and all of us will need to negotiate the course; how we adjust and accept our limitations and losses will determine if we are able to approach death with dignity or struggle with depression and despair.
This has been a fairly schematic description of a highly complex process. What I would propose next is yet more speculative. It is tempting and perhaps useful to think of societies as rising and falling in parallel to an individual's rise and fall. Young societies are typically vigorous, often expansionistic, usually unrealistically full of themselves. They feel the power and brashness of youth, without the leavening of experience. While they may have their full share of Thanatos, their view is toward building and their expression of Thanatos is externally directed. The young America had its "Manifest Destiny" and while the Native American often suffered at the hands of the United States, the country had little time for reflection and guilt. We had places to go and things to do, a nation to build. We came of age as a great power in the crucibles of the first and second World Wars, terrible times when it seemed as if Thanatos would take us all and everything we loved with it, but by the end of WWII, we imagined ourselves powerful and wise enough to wield control over the power of the sun (nuclear power) the ultimate source of all life on earth. The cold war aged us, made us more aware of our mortality, and Vietnam raised the kinds of questions that would be familiar to any self-reflective 60 year old: Were our best days behind us? Have we lost our way? Can we still accomplish great things? Are we, in fact, in a malaise from which we were likely to emerge as just one among many powers, no longer much of a super power? Many wondered if we were going the way of other great empires of the past, which had their youth, adulthood, and slow descent into eclipse. Paradoxically, it took an elderly President, the oldest ever to hold the office, to re-invigorate this country. In many ways it felt like the country, coming out of a long twilight time of questioning, was indeed reborn. The Reagan years set the stage for the unrealistic exuberance of the Clinton years, when we thought we could create new structures never seen before.
9/11 was a shock, and thus far we have responded with a vigor and commitment that has impressed and terrified many. Perhaps there is something unique in the American experience that would allow us to renew ourselves and have a second life as a still vigorous country, still on the upward slope of our lifespan. The jury is out on this question but the counselors of despair and malaise (and what is despair but Thanatos turned on the self) remain with us and are battling against our vigor. The battle has been, and is continuing to be, fought for the American Zeitgeist. The battle is waged over events great and small, Terri Shiavo's life and the War on Terror. It remains unclear which side will win, but I would suggest that a stalemate ultimately is a win for Thanatos; one you stop growing, you begin dying. Further, I would suggest that those who are fighting for Thanatos are unaware of their part in this struggle and believe they are fighting for Libido.
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