Does anything lye Beyond the Pleasure Principle?

By Melissa

In Freud's book Beyond the Pleasure Principle, he takes a closer look at the pleasure principle and how it affects human consciousness. It is believed that we are born with this principle, and that it only evolves into different things from childhood to adulthood. In the child's mind the pleasure principle is brought out through repetition of an event, be it good or bad. By repeating said event, the child maintains control over his reaction to it, and finds pleasure in that control. Through this type of child's play, a child is able to get over traumatic events.

Freud then takes a closer look at the dynamic between the survival instinct, later called the ego instinct, and the sex instinct. We live to die. Thus the survival instinct is in place to ensure that we die on our own terms, instead of from unnatural causes. So in a way the survival instinct is another part of the overall death instinct inside of us. The sex instinct on the other hand can also be refereed to in contrast as the life instinct. It is a way of ensuring eternal life through the production of evolution of our species and the reproduction of genetic material. Then we must examine the existence of a perfection instinct, which did not always exist within people but was rather developed through engaging in a society which contains the repression of Eros.

Then there is a split between a person, the mortal and immortal. The mortal part of a person is their body which will die without any change while the immortal part is their DNA which will change and grow insuring it's survival. Death can then be considered a result of reproduction. We live to reproduce and to die. After reproduction, what is there left to live for? These instincts are just a way of eventually letting us turn back to an inorganic state of nonliving.