Drive
drive (pulsion) Freud's concept of the drive (Trieb) lies at the heart of
his theory of sexuality. For Freud, the distinctive feature of human sexuality,
as opposed to the sexual life of other animals, is that it is not regulated by any
INSTINCT (a concept which implies a relatively fixed and innate relationship to
an object) but by the drives, which differ from instincts in that they are
extremely variable, and develop in ways which are contingent on the life
history of the subject.
Lacan insists on maintaining the Freudian distinction between Trieb
('drive') and Instinkt ('instinct'), and criticises James Strachey for obliterat-
ing this distinction by translating both terms as 'instinct' in the Standard
Edition (E, 301). Whereas 'instinct' denotes a mythical pre-linguistic NEED,
the drive is completely removed from the realm of BIOLOGY. The drives differ
.from biological needs in that they can never be satisfied, and do not aim at an
object but rather circle perpetually round it. Lacan argues that the purpose of
-the drive (Triebziel) is not to reach a goal (a final destination) but to follow its
aim (the way itself), which is to circle round the object (Sll, 168). Thus the
real purpose of the drive is not some mythical goal of full satisfaction, but to
return to its circular path, and the real source of enjoyment is the repetitive
movement of this closed circuit.
Lacan reminds his readers that Freud defined the drive as a montage
composed of four discontinuous elements: the pressure, the end, the object
and the source. The drive cannot therefore be conceived of as 'some ultimate
given, something archaic, primordial' (Sll, 162); it is a thoroughly cultural
and symbolic construct. Lacan thus empties the concept of the drive of the
lingering references in Freud's work to energetics and hydraulics.
Lacan incorporates the four elements of the drive in his theory of the drive's
'circuit'. In this circuit, the drive originates in an erogenous zone, circles round -
the object, and then returns to the erogenous zone. This circuit is structured by -
the three grammatical voices
1 The active voice (e.g. to see)
2 The reflexive voice (e.g. to see oneself)
3 The passive voice (e.g. to be seen)
The first of these two times (active and reflexive voices) are autoerotic: they
lack a subject Only in the third time (the passive voice), when the drive -
completes its circuit, does 'a new subject' appear (which is to say that before
this time, there was no subject: see S11, 178). Although the third time is the -
passive voice, the drive is always essentially active, which is why Lacan writes -
the third time not as 'to be seen' but as 'to make oneself be seen'. Even -
supposedly 'passive' phases of the drive such as masochism involve activity
(Sll, 200). The circuit of the drive is the only way for the subject to transgress
the pleasure principle.
Freud argued that sexuality is composed of a number of partial drives (Ger.
Partieltrieb) such as the oral drive and the anal drive, each specified by a
different source (a different erotogenic zone). At first these component drives
function anarchically and independently (viz. the 'polymorphous perversity' of
children), but in puberty they become organised and fused together under the
primacy of the genital organs (Freud, 1905d). Lacan emphasises the partial
nature of all drives, but differs from Freud on two points.
1. .Lacan rejects the idea that the partial drives can ever attain any
complete organisation or fusion, arguing that the primacy of the genital
zone, if achieved, is always a highly precarious affair. He thus challenges
the notion, put forward by some psychoanalysts after Freud, of a genital drive
in which the partial drives are completely integrated in a harmonious fashion.
2. Lacan argues that the drives are partial, not in the sense that they are
parts of a whole (a 'genital drive'), but in the sense that they only represent
sexuality partially; they do not represent the reproductive function of sexuality
but only the dimension of enjoyment (Sll, 204).
Lacan identifies four partial drives: the oral drive, the anal drive, the scopic
PARTIAL EROGENOUS PARTIAL VERB
DRIVE ZONE OBJECT
D Oral drive Lips Breast To suck
Anal drive Anus Faeces To shit
d Scopic drive Eyes Gaze To see
Invocatory drive Ears Voice To hear
Figure 4 Table of partial drives
drive, and the invocatory drive. Each of these drives is specified by a different
partial object and a different erogenous zone, as shown in Figure 4.
The first two drives relate to demand, whereas the second pair relate to
desire.
In 1957, in the context of the graph of desire, Lacan proposes the formula
(SO D) as the MATHEME for the drive. This formula is to be read: the barred
subject in relation to demand, the fading of the subject before the insistence of
a demand that persists without any conscious intention to sustain it.
Throughout the various reformulations of drive-theory in Freud's work, one
constant feature is a basic dualism. At first this dualism was conceived in terms
of an opposition between the sexual drives (Sexualtriebe) on the one hand, and
the ego-drives (Ichtriebe) or drives of self-preservation (Selbsterhaltungs-
triebe) on the other. This opposition was problematised by Freud's growing
realisation, in the period 1914-20, that the ego-drives are themselves sexual.
He was thus led to reconceptualise the dualism of the drives in terms of an
opposition between the life drives (Lebenstriebe) and the death drives
(Todestriebe).
Lacan argues that it is important to retain Freud's dualism, and rejects the
monism of Jung, who argued that all psychic forces could be reduced to one
single concept of psychic energy (Sl, l18-20). However, Lacan prefers to
reconceptualise this dualism in terms of an opposition between the symbolic
and the imaginary, and not in terms of an opposition between different kinds of
- drives. Thus, for Lacan, all drives are sexual drives, and every drive is a DEATH
- DRIVE Since every drive is excessive, repetitive, and ultimately destructive (Ec,
848).
The drives are closely related tO DESIRE; both originate in the field of the
subject, as opposed to the genital drive, which (if it exists) finds its form on the
side of the Other (Sll, 189). However, the drive is not merely another name
for desire: they are the partial aspects in which desire is realised. Desire is one
and undivided, whereas the drives are partial manifestations of desire.
def
Instinctual (pre-lingual) bodily impulses or instincts, which Freud ultimately decided could be reduced to two primary drives: 1) the life drives (both the pleasure principle and the reality principle); and 2) the death drive, which Freud saw as even more primal than the life drives.
