1. What can psychoanalysis tell us about civilization and how it was formed? Does it provide a good social theory?
2. Why does Freud think human beings can never be happy? Do you agree?
3. Why did Freud think that human beings must be tamed by institutions? What are the consequences for civilization?
4. What is Freud’s understanding of religion? Do you think it is reductive? (Students who attempt this question should consult The Future of an Illusion, and/or Totem and Taboo.)
5. Why is Freud not content with Marxism or communism? Do you agree with Freud?
6. Do you think humans have a death drive? What is it? Does Freud give a clear account of it?
7. ‘Love thy neighbour’? What is Freud’s response to this injunction? Do you agree with him, or is his position questionable?
8. Does Freud establish a convincing psychoanalytic theory of politics in Civilization and Its Disontents? Discuss.
9. How does Freud explain the paradox that the most morally upright people are often also the most guilt-ridden and uptight?
10. Is life in general understandable as a struggle between Eros (the life drive) and Thanatos (the death drive)? Or is this ‘philosophy’ in the worst, most ‘wishy washy’ sense of the term?
11. Do you think our whole civilization is ‘neurotic’? Is it right to use a psychoanalytic description to read an entire civilization?
12. Do you find Freud’s pessimism logical, given the experience of the events of September 11, 2011 and after? Explain why.
13. What is the big Other, in Lacan? How does it contrast with the ‘little o’ others we see and interact with? And why is it important to psychoanalysis?
14. What is imaginary identification in Lacan? How does it differ from symbolic identification?
15. What is ‘inter-passivity’ and how does it shape the way we think, believe, and desire? (Students who attempt this are encouraged to consult Zizek, The Plague of Fantasies, Chapter 3.)
16. Why does Zizek maintain that sometimes the mask is more truthful or important than the flesh-and-blood individual behind the mask?
17. Is ‘desire the desire of the other’? What sort of examples can you give to support this famous Lacanian hypothesis? What implications does this striking idea have?
18. What is fantasy for Lacan? To what pressing question does it answer? And how does it answer this question?
19. Examine Lacan’s view of sexual difference, with particular reference to the reading ‘Beyond the Phallus’. Do you think he avoids the problems that beset Freud’s attempts to explain how men and women come to be and desire as they do?
20. Use Freudian or Lacanian theory to critically examine a favourite film, play or novel of your choice.