A servidão íntima: entre-laços com a tirania que nos habita

Abstract

This research sought to investigate, through an interdisciplinary approach between psychoanalysis and political philosophy, the phenomenon of voluntary servitude and the psychic conditions that sustain the adhesion of individuals and collectives to authoritarian and tyrannical leaders. The problem guiding the investigative thinking was: in what way can psychoanalysis, in dialogue with philosophy, offer an expanded understanding of the psychic conditions that sustain the mass adhesion to tyrannical leaders? The general objective consisted of investigating, through psychoanalytic theory interdisciplinarily combined with philosophy, the social phenomenon of voluntary submission to authoritarian leaderships, with the following specific objectives: to examine the notion of voluntary servitude in Étienne de La Boétie; to characterize psychoanalysis as an instrument of social research; and to present Freudian metapsychological concepts (such as narcissism, ego ideal, ideal ego, masochism, and helplessness) that contribute to the understanding of the bond with the leader. The work employed a qualitative, bibliographical, interdisciplinary, and deconstructive methodology, taking La Boétie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude as a privileged empirical-discursive object, read in light of contributions from Plato, Spinoza, and Adorno in the philosophical field, and from Sigmund Freud, Joel Birman, and others in the psychoanalytic field. The central hypothesis sustained is that voluntary servitude cannot be understood merely as a political or ideological phenomenon, but must be thought of as an experience inscribed in the psychic economy of subjects: the subject not only obeys, but actively participates in producing their own submission, libidinally investing in the leader, identifying with them, and often finding, in the masochistic bond, an unconscious defense against helplessness. The research demonstrated that the mass organizes itself from affective bonds structured around the ego ideal, a mechanism by which each member renounces their own critical instance and deposits it in the figure of the leader. The narcissism of minor differences, identification with the aggressor, and civilizational malaise appeared as theoretical operators that allowed understanding both the internal cohesion of groups and the systematic hostility directed at the other. Among the findings is that freedom is neither a definitive conquest nor a naturally given state, but a permanent task of subjective elaboration, and that the critique of tyranny, to be effective, cannot do without listening to the unconscious processes that render domination not only tolerable, but desirable.