Sigmund Freud is one of the most controversial names in history. His psychoanalytic theory known as the “Oedipus Complex” refers to an early developmental stage of young boys. Freud believed that boys typically around the age of five desire a mother’s love and often get jealous of their fathers, leading to great resentment. They may even go as far as wishing death upon the father so that there is no one else to share the mother’s love.
The root of Freud’s theory comes from Sophocles’ Oedipus the King. After Oedipus is abandoned by his parents as a baby, he grows up to unknowingly murder his father and marry his mother. “Leave me live in the mountains where Cithaeron is, that’s called my mountain, which my mother and father while they were living would have made my tomb. So I may die by their decree who sought indeed to kill me. Yet I know this much: no sickness and no other thing will kill me. I would not have been saved from death if not for some strange evil fate.” (Oedipus, 1636).
Freud felt Oedipus’ lack of awareness of his dilemma was similar to a child’s because a child’s sexual desire for their opposite-sex parent is unconscious, as well as their aggression and hate towards their same-sex parent. Just like how Oedipus had a tragic ending, Freud slipped into a coma and never awoke. His reason for death was from a drug overdose and he paid dearly during his lifetime for his theory. Until recently, the concept of fatalism was vastly accepted and taken seriously. It is the idea that what happens or has happened, in some sense has to or have had to happen.
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Today, fatalism is the root of disdain. People follow different notions of fate in many cultures. For example, in Buddhist cultures, the idea of karma is greatly believed. What is necessary is usually the only outcome, despite the cause or root. Therefore, one can think that Oedipus was destined to kill his father and marry his mother no matter what he or someone else could’ve done to prevent it. “In what I came to learn, but he foretold other and desperate horrors to befall me, that I was fated to lie with my mother, and show to daylight an accursed breed which men would not endure, and I was doomed to be murdered of the father that begot me.” (Oedipus, 925).
There are both advantages and disadvantages for modern societies to embrace to the fatalism of the Greeks. Fatalism can be negative if it’s associated with feelings of hopelessness and despair. However, if we can accept the fact that some events occur beyond our control and nothing can be done to prevent it, fatalism may be positive. Fatalism can allow us to accept reality, or it can cause us to believe that nothing can change reality.
Being fatalistic about the future is knowing that bad things may happen to us, but developing a greater feeling when good things happen to us. A major flaw in fatalism is that it can lead to nihilism. It can make a person believe that their actions won’t make any type of difference, and that nothing is worth fighting or living for. When viewed in a proper perspective, fatalism can be advantageous in the world we live in today.
