On the generational cycle—an address*

Abstract

This chapter focuses on some themes of the human life cycle in its intrinsic relation to generational cycles—which, in turn, are experienced, at any given time and place, in the context of wider world events, whether these seem dominated by metaphysical, evolutionary, or historical perspectives. Psychoanalysis, for good clinical reasons, always returns to the earliest and most obscure developmental risks. This trend must be complemented by a systematic emphasis on those developmental strengths which count in intergenerational actuality. The chapter suggests that a theory of psychosexuality demands the assumption of Procreativity, an instinctual drive which under present conditions of otherwise mandatory birth control, may be repressed or rationalized away. Finally, Oedipus Tyrannos is briefly reviewed as a generational tragedy beginning with a parental rejection on oracular grounds, and ending with a procreative hubris which imposes a generative curse on the whole polis .

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