Nietzsche and Freud on altruism

The title of this is obviously pretentious as a blog post since I am sure it could be a dissertation in itself, but I have been reading some Freud and have been struck by some similarities between him and Nietzsche. The latter statement makes up for the blog post since it obviously shows how clueless I am that I am just putting these things together. I'll admit that, aside from a basic understanding of the "God is Dead" statement, an inkling of his place in the history of existentialism, and the pop history version of his role in the philosophy of fascism, I really didn't understand the thrust of his argument until a few months ago when I was forced to teach it--an undertaking that was humbling to say the least. Nevertheless, I became clearer on his position on morals and thought it interesting to see the parallel with the theories of Austrians like Hayek as well as the Objectivism of Rynd. Though they all take different paths to get there, they ultimately seem to land up in the same place, namely that altruism is a sort of primitive framework of morality or at least that it is ill suited for modern society.

Oh I am messing it all up by trying to draw these parallels too closely. There are vast differences between these thinker's stances, to the point that a comparison isn't really all that productive. The real comparison that I find interesting is the one that I initially got out of bed to write about, namely the parallel between the Freud of Civilization and its Discontents and the Nietzsche of Geneology of Morals. Though it has been a while since I read the latter, the former is fresh on my mind and one of the lengthiest discussions in it is Frued's discussion of what is known in Christianity as "the Golden Rule:" namely, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Freud finds many logical problems with this imperative. Most of all, he sees it as denigrating the people who one actually loves and who have proven themselves worthy of love to simply dispense love equally to everyone; and he sees it as a risky proposition to give everyone love since there are likely to be people who don't follow this rule and, if you're standing around loving evetryone, you could get screwed.

As conflicted as Freud seems to be with this imperative, he seems to come to peace with it but not because he finds it morally sound. Rather his understanding of it is as a sort of political tool to keep people from giving themselves over to their most violent urges. The latter is probably what the book is most remembered for as it is one of the places (as I understand it) that Freud first touches upon the Thantos or Death Drive. This is posited as a drive which is only somewhat differentiated from the Eros or libido or love/sex drive. He first questions the above moral imperative on the basis of the Eros, seeing it as a way of limiting sexual conduct to heterosexual, monogamous sex for the purposes of reproduction and expanding what he calls aim-inhibited love, or friendship, throughout a much larger group of people in order to help people identify with the nation or other imagined community.

He later says that it is for some measure of security that people submit to this repression of their sexual urges and dilution of their portion of love. when he first mentions this, it isn't entirely clear what he means by security but, after discussing the "aggressive instinct" it is evident that he means security from the violent tendencies of one another, not just the security of having a spouse for sexual purposes. In other words, he saw this commandment of fraternal love, common, he says, to many religions and ethical paradigms, as an necessary tool that the powerful use to keep the masses in line. I say "the powerful" though Freud is even more impersonal about it. I can't find a place where he says, as Stuart Ewen claims in PR, that the leaders of a society must promote some sort of ideology in order to keep people in line, but he does make this seem understandable and even desirable on some level. Still he doesn't give this process an agent, just an object. In this way his understanding of this is somewhat similar to Ellul's extended definition of propaganda which, although it gives a description of the process of propaganda, he doesn't point to any group of people that might be more likely to propagandize than another. In both cases this wouldn't seem to be an elision if they also made it seem that the objects of propaganda were also equally diffuse and unknowable. But Ellul and, especially, Freud seem to indicate that there is one group of people that is specifically being repressed by this process and they are simply, and in an unreflective manner, seen as the non-elites of the society.

Here he never really comes right out and promotes the idea that there are people who have special qualities that make them eligible for this role; there doesn't seem to be anything essential about the elites that makes them particularly qualified to fill this role. However, the fulfillment of this role of leadership is essential. Though I this is a general feeling I get from the text, there is a specific moment on page 74 where he basically says that the "love thy neighbor" thing isn't enough: if there isn't also a leader to take charge of this 'psychological poverty of groups' then this horizontal identification will be too easily hijacked or enflamed against an incorrectly identified foe. The latter is also a key proposition (seen on p. 72) which is basically a key tenet of modern pratice of nationalism, patriotism, and politics in general: namely that "it is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggression."

There is a certain feel of Machiavelli being justified on psychological grounds here, except instead of the people being merely stupid they are dangerous if left alone. This makes it seem less elitist and more pragmatic and seems to make any attempt at instituting either an ideological or repressive state apparatus (to use Althusser's terms

In addition to discounting for the most part