Essay One
Objects the Ultimate Defense Mechanisms.
Luxury objects like cars, boats, planes, watches, houses, clothes are sold throughout the whole world. Objects are nothing but objects. They are not alive. So why are they so overrated? In a world where you are defined by what you do not who you are, objects like that, often offer a short cut to people that are trying to fit into their respective societies. Ever heard the expression, “Dress for the job you want, not for the one you have”? This is a very common expression that emphasizes the value of objects, instead of what they are worth it. Objects are often overrated by society, society that implies value to objects as a form of defense mechanism.
Society does not have one true definition, so I will not attempt to give one. What I will do is explain how society fits in my argument. First and foremost, to understand society you need to demystify the word “Society”. Society in its core is made by people a people are simpler to understand. For instance, according to Freud our actions are divided into three major groups, ID, Ego, and Super-Ego.
Our ID basically is what commands our primal desires. As Freud said in some of his introductory lectures on psychoanalysis, “It is the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, what little we know of it we have learned from our study of the Dream Work and of the construction of neurotic symptoms, and most of that is of a negative character and can be described only as a contrast to the ego. We approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations. ... It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle.”(1) ID works under the “pleasure principle”, a principle that has “one job” instantaneous pleasure. If our actions were only made under the influence of our ID, we would not wait for food in a restaurant we would simply steal it from the neighbor table because we are hungry. We would not be social figures we would only be interested with our own selves.
Super-Ego on the other hand, is what makes us be socially acceptable. The Super-Ego gives us the notion of right, wrong and also provides us with guilt. Freud's point of view suggests that the super-ego is a symbol of the father figure and cultural regulations. Most of the time the super‑ego and the id are in disagreement because of their opposite interests. (2)
The Ego however, has the “hardest job” to conciliate the needs of the ID and the Super-Ego. And, sometimes, because of the “stress of the job” the Ego activates some defense mechanism such as, denial, displacement, intellectualization, fantasy, compensation, projection, rationalization, reaction formation, regression, repression, sublimation, according to Freud, and according to his daughter Anna Freud the concepts of undoing, suppression, dissociation, idealization, identification, introjection, inversion, somatization, splitting, and substitution, were also included.
A people try to fit into different societies all the time, business, athletic, playboy. These are three of the most desired societies in the world. Sometimes objects can help those people to get into those societies. For instance, I am a lawyer and I need to show some credibility to the judge, the jury and my client. What would be more effective, going to court in a Zegna suit with a Rolex on the wrist or if I go to court wearing sweatpants and a hoodie? Without saying a single word the man in the suit showed more credibility than the man in the hoodie. Of course, what I say should be of more relevance to them. But only by using the right objects the man in the suit was half way done.
Objects tend to assume value and credibility even though they are just objects. What makes an object valuable? That will be different for each person. Although, for me, something is valuable because of the history behind it, such as my watches. My first watch was given to me by my dad, that watch is absolutely priceless to me, because of its value not because of its worth. I make collection of watches for over seven years now and one of the things I look when I buy a watch is its history. Most of the top quality watches are pieces of art and history. For some people though, they are not pieces of art but simply an object that displays time. When we are trying to be accepted someone we appeal for their emotion, their logic, and even our own or someone else’s credibility. There are diverse ways of doing that, for instance, during a job interview prove that it is logical for the company to hire you. During a relationship, make the person you are in a relation with feel for you. At last during a party, being introduced to people by the “owner” of the party. Ethos, Pathos and Logos, these three methods of persuasion almost never fail.
In sum, our unique situations in life will aggregate value to objects. Objects that are completely unnecessary to our life, but can make it that much more pleasant. Freud a genius of psychoanalysis and father of the so-called “modern psychoanalysis” said on his New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, "One might compare the relation of the ego to the id with that between a rider and his horse. The horse provides the locomotors energy, and the rider has the prerogative of determining the goal and of guiding the movements of his powerful mount towards it. But all too often in the relations between the ego and the id we find a picture of the less ideal situation in which the rider is obliged to guide his horse in the direction in which it itself wants to go.” (3) The man’s primal desire and his socially acceptable decisions are not always in agreement but when they are it is O.K. So objects and its values are a mere projections of our own necessities that being defense or acceptance.
Works Cited.
1. Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis [1933] (Penguin Freud Library 2) pp. 105–6
2. Sédat, Jacques (2000). "Freud". Collection Synthèse (Armand Colin) 109. ISBN 978-2-200-21997-0
3. "About." eHow. Kendra Cherry, n.d. Web. 4 Oct. 2014.
http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologyquotes/a/freudquotes.htm