Abstract
This study intends to show the importance of Freud’s contribution for the comprehension of the phenomenon of crime in its roots as part of cultural dynamics. As a starting point, we examined a few short texts in which the author discusses the issue of crime in its specificity. These sparse, apparently insignificant writings were produced mainly by judicial demand. Nevertheless, since we aimed to argue that crime should instead be understood as an indicator of the dramatic interrelation between cultural genesis and the structure of subjectivity (rather than only in its most evident manifestations), this investigation goes beyond these texts. To synthetically reconstruct Freud’s thoughts regarding this matter, we have considered several other Freudian texts under the perspective of two interconnected aspects of psychoanalytic thought: metapsychology and the interpretation of culture.
Keywords:
crime; psyche; culture; Freud