A Freudian Interpretation Of Enlightenment - by Saleem Rana

A Freudian Interpretation Of Enlightenment - by Saleem Rana: "Sigmund Freud believed that human beings were motivated by two inner drives: eros and thanatos.

Eros was the drive for life, for more of it, for the abundance and fullness of it.

Thanatos was its opposite, the urge to overcome the disappointments of life by craving forgetfulness and, ultimately, oblivion through death.

While most of Freudianism has been debunked because his ideas, although exciting to the imagination, lack self-consistency, observed verification, and close correlation with reality, his ideas on life and death appear to have an axiomatic quality to them. This could be because these ideas have such a primal quality. It is difficult to deny they exist because a casual observation of any human life shows these two forces at work.

In fact, it may not be unreasonable to ask that since death is inevitable, we should not rush to it prematurely, by trying to arrest the quickening of our desires. Thanatos will have its day soon enough. Wisdom, perhaps, consists of simply embracing eros while it is still available to us."