Monday, June 20, 2016

Sublimation and Sexuality

Kaufmann is among those who trace Freud's concept of Sublimation to the phrase "the sex drive sublimated itself into love", from #189 of Beyond Good and Evil.  But, a more detailed comparison exposes more differences than similarities.  To begin with, in Human, All Too Human, #1, Nietzsche plainly states that he is borrowing the term from Chemistry, likely the transition from a solid to a gas, to illustrate the derivation of apparently 'spiritual' concepts, such as altruism, from material sources.  So, his concept of Sublimation is more general than Freud's, e. g. applicable to concept-formation, and not merely to drives. Now, the topic of #189 is how drives can actually be intensified by their brief cessation, e. g. eating and fasting, with sexuality as another example.  But, the significant element in the latter is the "itself", which ascribes the transition to "love" to sexuality itself, not to external forces, suggesting a ruse on the part of the drive.  So, at minimum, Nietzsche's version of Sexuality, unlike Freud's, is hardly blind, and is aware of external forces.  Accordingly, that versatility tends to undermine a more general tracing of Freud's Id-Ego-Superego model to Nietzsche's Dionysian-Apollonian-Socratic trio, primarily because it suggests that the Dionysian, unlike the Id, is the source of the other two.  Thus, Kaufmann's citation, when further explored, more draws attention to the differences between the two concepts of Sublimation and Sexuality, than reveals their similarities.

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