Week 2

If there is something like a “compulsion to repeat,” would it operate on a global level, or be

limited to the influence of individual drives? Freud seems to think it possible that the
unconscious exerts a coherent pressure on present experience, that gradually shapes it to old
forms. Is there any evidence that unconscious processing is capable of coherence in this
manner? Of planned/intelligent/“rational” manipulation of a subject or situation?

Is there anything like a “simple essentiality of thought” that is not itself compelled by life? Any
reason that is not itself compelled by rationality? (All “reason” would be then is a socially
sanctioned outlet for generic urges - the name we give to a particular style of repetitive
thought.)