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Featherstone, M (2022) ‘Circulus Vitiosus Deus’: The Death Drive Now and Then. Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical Criminology. ISSN 2166-8094
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Abstract
Starting from an exploration of Freud’s notion of the Death Drive and applying it to our times (said to have arrived at the End of History) this contribution argues that our contemporary thanatological moment does still offer, against all odds, the possibility of the invention of new way of living. Deploying and assembling insights from authors such as Lacan, Derrida and Stiegler, it may indeed be argued that history is over, and that, thanatologically speaking, our ever-destructive way of late capitalist life has been running on memory and repetition since the late 1980s. We are living in the end times. However, it is in facing up to this painful truth, mourning the past, and recognising that we are now, more than ever before, caught in the primal death drive, that we will discover a better, more humble future. What is proposed here is a return to the idea that what we need to do to escape from the fatal circularity of death drive capitalism is to lean on psychoanalysis and the theory that recognition, realisation, and a coming to terms with our situation will open up a minimal distance from the necessity of the inertia of natural being and enable us to establish a new minor (non)humanism characterised by an understanding and acceptance of the constitutive nature of lack, vulnerability, and finitude.
Item Type: | Article |
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Additional Information: | The final version of this article and all relevant information related to it, including copyrights, can be found on the publisher website. |
Subjects: | J Political Science > JA Political science (General) J Political Science > JC Political theory K Law > K Law (General) |
Divisions: | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social, Political and Global Studies |
Related URLs: | |
Depositing User: | Symplectic |
Date Deposited: | 27 Jan 2023 12:26 |
Last Modified: | 27 Jan 2023 12:26 |
URI: | https://eprints.keele.ac.uk/id/eprint/11855 |