Freud on the First World War (Part 2)

Abstract

Abstract: The article “Freud on the First World War (Part 2)” analyzes Sigmund Freud’s controversial attitude towards the First World War. It exposes Freud’s attitude towards the medical procedure known as the faradization, and his double role regarding the Great War. His public persona was that of a pacifist scholar, while his personal correspondence reveals a nationalist who lived from one German victory to the next. This article demonstrates there are two Freuds regarding the Great War. The ‘first Freud’ was his public medical persona, who lamented the partisan attitudes of scientists carried away by their emotions. The ‘second Freud’ is Freud in communication with his closest friends and colleagues, where he admits his nationalism, and he identified himself with the Austro-German side and displays a war enthusiasm. In the only study dedicated to the Great World, the study titled “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death”, Freud offered a rich and valid insight into human nature, human’s capacity for destruction, and also human’s attitude towards its own immortality. Freud draw a clear distinction between war and death, and while in the first essay he dealt with discontent and disillusionment, in the second he says that human’s unconsciousness believes in its own immortality. The article also exposes Freud’s legendary meetings with artists during the Great War, and most notably with Lou Andreas-Salomé and with Rainer Maria Rilke.