Three Groups. On Freud, the Collective Subject, and Local Empirical Research

Abstract

In Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Freud ascribes to a group the ability to momentarily take the place of the whole of human society. If we read this remark in an objective sense and do not reduce it to the subjective illusion of a group member, we can understand it as a Freudian definition of a collective subject as a split of society in its concretisation. In the article, this theoretical framework provides the perspective through which we consider three empirical cases of group formations that have marked the Slovenian political situation in the last few years. Firstly, the group of protestors, which despite certain specifics belongs to the series of global protests against the dominant form of politico-economic power. Secondly, the group of persisters, which was formed in support of Janez Janša, the convicted president of the Slovenian Democratic Party and former Prime Minister. And thirdly, the group of voters, which in the specific Slovenian situation have demonstrated some of the key problems of contemporary democracy. We argue that, despite their differences, all three types of groups are forms of a collective subject as a subject of thought, and thus the realisation of, as Freud would say, a group’s capability to achieve “creative genius in the field of intelligence.”