Conclusion: Death drive ecologies

Dick, M.-D. and McLaughlan, R. (2020) Conclusion: Death drive ecologies. In: Late Capitalist Freud in Literary, Cultural, and Political Theory. Palgrave Macmillan: New York, NY, pp. 157-174. ISBN 9783030471934 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-47194-1_6)

Abstract

This book concludes with an analysis of death drive as it operates within contemporary neoliberalism. We consider it futile to distinguish between various forms or sub-iterations of free-market capitalism—predatory, conscientious, green and so on—as, when understood within a psychoanalytic paradigm, all capitalism is disaster capitalism tending towards destruction. It concludes by way of a psychoanalytic reading of the current climate emergency and the School Strike movement that has appeared in response. Our book ends by demonstrating how the figure of the child remains central to psychoanalysis and, via a study of Greta Thunberg, we entreat that adults should reimagine inequity from a childish perspective. Thunberg’s binary approach to the climate catastrophe demands that adults engage with the seemingly insurmountable, as the Anthropocene generation are being required to do as a result of their actions. Capitalism is destroying the earth, so we need to imagine a world without capitalism.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Additional Information: eBook ISBN: 9783030471941.
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: McLaughlan, Mr Robert and Dick, Dr Maria-Daniella
• Authors: Dick, M.-D., and McLaughlan, R.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Literature
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• ISBN: 9783030471934