pass through the “ego, which is the representative of the external world to the id” (Copjec, 43). He asserts, “it’s not possible to speak of direct inheritance in the ego,” as, “it is here [in the ego] that a gulf between an actual individual and the concept of a species becomes evident” (Copjec, 43). This gap allows the subject a degree of autonomy, and “Freud argues…it is the very maintenance of this gap that prevents the individual subject from being annihilated by the history she inherits” (Copjec, 44). Because the historical inheritance contained in the id is mediated through the partially non-determined ego, whether it passes down as the law of the species, the community, or the family, the subject maintains a degree of freedom. The existence of the excess of the law that is rendered inarticulable by the ego entails that the subject will “carry out the law or carry on the family name without simply repeating in the present what has already been dictated in the past” (Copjec, 44). Thus, due to the undetermined nature of the ego, Antigone is not necessarily destined to repeat the tragic fate of her incestuous family.
VVVIYoung-Bruehl also develops a notion of ego independence by drawing on Freud’s account of the ego and ego instincts. Whereas Copjec centers her assertions concerning the autonomous ego on explicit references to the ego’s undetermined nature, Young-Bruehl focuses less on overt notions of autonomy and more on the processes that serve to preserve and enrich the ego. Young-Bruehl suggests a return to Freud’s pre 1920 distinction between the ego instincts and libidinal instincts as a way to explore the implications of assuming the existence of an affectionate current not reducible to aim-inhibited libidinal instincts.
VVVIBefore Freud posited the existence of the Death Instinct and united the ego and the libidinal instincts under the notion of Eros (the Life Instinct) he had theorised that “it was the self-preservative instinct, or the ego instinct, that” “contrasted to the sexual instinct with its species preservative or reproductive goal” (Young-Bruehl, 27). In this original dual theory of the instincts, Freud maintained that the self-preservative ego instincts were united under the “affectionate current” and that this current was directed towards the infant’s caregivers. Libidinal instincts were secondary and supported by this original self-preservative affectionate current. Initially in this account, Freud had claimed “sexual instincts find their first objects by attaching themselves to the evaluations made by the ego instincts, precisely in the way in which the first sexual satisfactions are experienced in attachment to bodily functions necessary for the preservation of life” (Young-Bruehl, 27). Thus, prior to 1920, Freud locates the affectionate current within the realm of ego instincts, rather than under libidinal instincts.
However, as Young-Bruehl laments, Freud moves away from this conclusion as he posits a new dual theory of the instincts as the struggle between the Life and the Death instincts in Civilization and its Discontents. In this second manifestation of his instinct theory, affection is “presented not as an originary ego instinctual current but only as a result—rarely attained—of aim-inhibited sexuality” (Young-Bruehl, 28). Young-Bruehl claims that in making this move from ego instinctual love to aim-inhibited libidinal love, Freud loses a socially important thread present in his original theory. This move eclipses
66