The Freudian unconscious is a historical product of disciplinary society, not a timeless formation.

Evidence

The psyche of today’s achievement-subject differs from the psyche of the disciplinary subject. The ego, as Freud defines it, is a well-known disciplinary subject. Freud’s psychic apparatus is a repressive apparatus with commandments and prohibitions that subjugate and repress. Like disciplinary society, the psychic apparatus sets up walls, thresholds, borders, and guards. For this reason, Freudian psychoanalysis is only possible in repressive societies that found their organization on the negativity of prohibitions and commandments. Contemporary society, however, is a society of achievement; increasingly, it is shedding the negativity of prohibitions and commandments and presenting itself as a society of freedom. The modal verb that determines achievement society is not the Freudian Should, but Can. This social transformation entails intrapsychic restructuring. The late-modern achievement-subject possesses an entirely different psyche than the obedience-subject for whom Freud conceived psychoanalysis. Freud’s psychic apparatus is dominated by negation [Verneinung], repression, and fear of transgression. The ego is a “seat of anxiety” [Angststätte]. In contrast, the late-modern achievement-subject is poor in negation. It is a subject of affirmation. Were the unconscious necessarily connected to the negativity of negation and repression [Verdrängung], then the late-modern achievement-subject would no longer have an unconscious. It would be a post-Freudian ego. The Freudian unconscious is not a formation that exists outside of time. It is a product of the disciplinary society, dominated by the negativity of prohibitions and repression, that we have long since left behind. — Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 91

Categorization

• XREF: Directly engages the reader’s stated purpose: this is the core of why Han thinks Foucault’s/Freud’s framework is obsolete. Connects to the shift from obedience-subject to achievement-subject. — connects to: The Freudian unconscious reintroduces a deceiver-deceived duality rather than explaining bad faith — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 282; The concept of the unconscious was a trap, not a liberation for the mad — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 443; In Freudian terms a girl’s sexual development can stall into frigidity or homosexuality. (+2 more)
• DEFINE: Establishes the definitional contrast between the negation-dominated disciplinary psyche and the affirmation-dominated achievement psyche, centering on the modal shift from Should to Can.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that the unconscious itself is historically contingent — a product of a specific social formation now outdated — is a dense, paradigm-shifting proposition about the historicity of psychic structure.

Related

• The Freudian unconscious may be a historically contingent artifact, not a timeless structure (similarity 0.84)
• Dismantling prohibitions eliminates the psychic repression that generated Freudian symptoms (similarity 0.82)
• The concept of the unconscious was a trap, not a liberation for the mad (similarity 0.82)
• The dominant social regime has shifted from discipline to achievement, rendering Foucault obsolete. (similarity 0.81)
• Conventional psychic health requires a deeper mutilation than classic neurotic repression (similarity 0.79)
• The Freudian unconscious reintroduces a deceiver-deceived duality rather than explaining bad faith (similarity 0.78)
• Freud figureds the psyche as a conquered city, a political image, not animal subjects. (similarity 0.78)