LAWRENCE AND CHRIST
Civilization has been built up, under the pressure of the
struggle of existence, by sacrifices in gratification of the primi–
tive impulses, and it is to a great extent forever being re–
created, as each individual successively joining the community,
repeats the sacrifice of his instinctive pleasures for the com–
mon good. The sexual are amongst the most important of the
instinctive forces thus utilized; they are in this way sublimated,
that is to say, their energy is turned aside from its sexual
goal and diverted towards other ends, no longer sexual and
socially more valuable.
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The tension between impulse and repression (between the visionary
and the moral) that exists within both the individual and culture
is
a permanent tension to which man must accommodate himself.
The tragic or pessimistic tone of Freud's later work reflects his view
that the passional self and the requirements of civilized life are in
permanent opposition to each other. In
Civilization and Its Dis–
contents,
in which Freud complicates his view by the postulation
of the aggressive instincts and the death wish, the opposition is not
simply between impulse and regressi0n, but also between Eros (the
sublimation of the sexual instinct) and Thanatos (the destructive
and disintegrative force in civilization). The possibility of harmony
is embodied by Eros, "builder of cities," but Eros is only one term
of the opposition in Freud's Manichean vision of civilization.
The fateful question of the human species seems to me to
be whether and to what extent the cultural process developed
in it will succeed in mastering the derangements of communal
life caused by the human instinct of aggression and self–
destruction. In this connection, perhaps the phase through
which we are at this moment passing deserves special interest.
Men have brought their powers of subduing the forces of
nature to such a pitch that by using them they could now
very easily exterminate one another to the last man. They
know this-hence arises a great part of their current unrest,
their dejection, their mood of apprehension. And now it may
be expected that the other of the two "heavenly forces,"
eternal Eros, will put forth his strength so as to maintain
himself alongside his equally immortal adversary.
In
Fantasia oj the Unconscious,
Lawrence rejects the Freudian
