A Study On Freud "the Law Is The Group’s Super-ego"

Psychology and Jurisprudence, these two disciplines are derived from the philosophy.Though they are kind of different on the objects of studies, the purposes are both pointing tothe same goal which is how to live a “good” life. As a matter of fact, they are just the differentchoices for human beings upon the path of the intelligence. It is rare in China, however, to usethe psychological analytical methods on the thinking of the fundamental questions of theJurisprudence in the academic field.Sigmund Freud tries to use the theory of the psychoanalysis into the areas of the socialliving and cultural development in his later thinking. He begins to break the individuallimitations of the psychoanalytical study, and finally forms the creative views of thecivilization where “Instinct-civilization” is the most important relations.Instinct is the inherent drive of the human activities and the social working. The societyconsists of the human beings, and the human beings are driven by the instinct. To palliate thethree kinds of the sufferings, people are willing to give up partial instinct for the security andthe regulation. The Law is born and grows up to be the group’s consciousness, and eventuallybecomes “the Law of everyone”.The repression of the sexual and aggressive instincts makes it possible that people live ina civilized way in the society. But this depressed part of the death instinct will inwardlyproduce the self-destruction, so it is hard for people to feel the happiness, and turn out thedissatisfactions of the civilization. The crux lies in the fierce conflicts between the sexual andaggressive instincts and the requirements of the law. All the civilization and law are therepression and the negation of the instinct.“Super-ego” is treated as the precious civilized property, and it would make “theobjectors changed into the mediums of the civilization”. In this cultural unit, the moremediums, the more firmness. This group’s super-ego is the bases of the social civilization.In the external authority, people set up the law as the tool of repression with the contentof the punishment of the aggressive behavior, at the meantime in the interior authority, todeepen the moral certainty and obey to the law with the thought that we do it by the reason of“the self-security need” or “the civilized need”, instead of overthrow it by the need of theinstinct, which is the impulsive、irrational and without the logic. It is helpful to the greatextent, to arouse the limited libido and strengthen the social management by this repressed relation.So the Law is neither a kind of group consciousness nor a repression tool to the instinct,but to exist as “a group’s super-ego” in the higher psychological level.