Divine neurotics: Subversion of anger in Aeschylus’ Eumenides and integrative violence

Abstract

The article will compare two narratives about a specific way of subduing anger, and its immanent actualization of violence and aggression under the order of justice. First, the contemporary narrative will be processed within three discursive censorships: cultural, psychological and political, and its sublimation in Freud’s concept of the “death drive”. Next, the genealogy of anger in the ancient context will be presented in order to arrive at the defining subversion in Aeschylus’ play Eumenides and thus to compare it with contemporary discourses of violence. It will be shown that the dark Hellenic intuition is perhaps theoretically more productive when it comes to thematization and explication of the problem of the violent foundation of justice, and we will argue this through the postulation of a three-part dialectical structure consisting of 1) a transcendent source, 2) a divine neurotic and 3) subversion in the psychological imaginary of violent scenarios. The structure will also show us that the emanation of violence from anger is always part of a wider implied scheme, project or order, and that a violent act cannot simply be reduced to the motive and psychological character of the perpetrator and to its materialization.