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"[[drive]]" ([[Fr]. ''[[pulsion]]''; [[Ger]]. ''[[Trieb]]'')
==Sigmund Freud==
[[Freud]]'s concept of the [[drive]] (''[[Trieb]]'') lies at the heart of his theory of [[sexuality]].
[[Freud]]'s concept of the [[drive]] (''[[Trieb]]'') is central to his theory of [[human]] [[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 [[drive]]s -- which differ from [[instinct]]s in that they are extremely variable, and develop in ways which are contingent on the life history of the [[subject]].
==Jacques Lacan==
[[Lacan]] insists on maintaining the [[Freud]]ian distinction between ''[[Trieb]]'' ('[[drive]]') and ''[[Instinkt]]'' ('[[instinct]]'), and criticizes James Strachey for obliterating this distinction by translating both terms as "[[instinct]]" in the ''[[Standard Edition]]''.<ref>{{E}} p.301</ref>
Whereas "[[instinct]]" denotes a mythical pre-linguistic [[need]], the [[drive]] is completely removed from the realm of [[biology]].
The [[drive]]s differ from [[biological]] [[need]]s 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]].<ref>{{S11}} p.168</ref>
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 [[drvie]] 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."<ref>{{S11}} p.162</ref>
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 circut, the [[drive]] originates in an [[erogenous zone]].
This circuit is structured by the three grammatical voices.
# The active voice (e.g. to see)
# The reflexive voice (e.g. to see oneself)
# The passive voice (e.g. to be seen)
---
The firs 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).
Although the third time is the passive voice, the [[drive]] is always essentially active, which is why [[Lacan]] writes that 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]].<ref>{{S11}} p.200</ref>
The circuit of the [[driv]] 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 [[drive]]s function anarchically and independently (viz. the 'polymorphous perversity' of children), but in puberty they become organized and fused together under the priamcy of the genital organs.<ref>{{F}} p.1905d.</ref>
[[Lacan]] emphasizes the partial nature of all [[drive]]s, but differs from [[Freud]] on two points:
===One===
[[Lacan]] rejects the idea that the partial drives can ever attain any complete organization or fusion, aruging that the priamcy 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 relation.
===Two===
[[Lacan]] argues that the [[drive]]s are partial, not in the sense that thy 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.<ref>{{S11}} p.204</ref>
---
[[Lacan]] identifies four partial drives: the oral drive, the anal drive, the scopic drive, and the invocatory drive.
Each of these drives is specified by a different [[partial object]] and a different erogenous zone.
--
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 ('''S''' <> D) as the [[matheme]] for the [[drive]].
This formula is to be read: the [[bar]]ed [[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 (''Selbsterhaltungstriebe'') on the other.
This opposition was problematized by [[Freud]]'s growing realization, in the period 1914-20, that th ego-drives are themselves sexual.
He was thus led to reconceptualize the dualism of the [[drive]]s in terms of an opposition between the life drives (''Lebenstriebe'') and the [[death drive]]s (''Todostriebe'').
--
[[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.<ref>{{S1}} p.118-20</ref>
However, [[Lacan]] prefers to reconceptualize this dualism in terms of an opposition between the [[symbolic]] and the [[imaginary]], and not in terms of an oppositio between different kinds of [[drive]]s.
Thus, for [[Lacan]], all [[drive]]s are sexual drives, and every [[drive]] is a [[death drive]] since every [[drive]] is excessive, repetitive, and ultimately destructive.<ref>{{Ec}} p.848</ref>
--
The [[drive]]s 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]].<ref>{{S11}} p.189</ref>
However, the [[drive]] is not merley anothe rname for [[desire]]: they are the partial aspects in which [desire]] is realized.
[[Desire]] is one and undivided, whereas the [[drive]]s are partial manifestations of [[desire]].
