Judith Le Soldat: Werkausgabe / Band 4: Freiwillige Knechtschaft

Volume 4 of the 'Complete Works' is a reprint of Judith Le Soldat's first monograph ('Voluntary Servitude. Masochism and Morality'), published in 1989. The study addresses the passive, masochistic aspects of the aggressive drive. Point of departure is the inquiry into why so many people support the power structures of society, even though they suffer from them. In the course of her monograph, Le Soldat refutes the thesis of »voluntary servitude« (Étienne de La Boétie), according to which people take secret, namely »masochistic« pleasure in submitting to authoritarian structures. At the same time, she develops a new psychoanalytical approach to what Sigmund Freud called »erogenous masochism«, and describes the psychic circumstances under which physical pain becomes a condition for the gratifying release of tension.