After Father, After Mother

(Special thanks to Alexandre Leupin, Emeritus Professor, Louisiana State University, and intergenerational family friend, for his input)

A lot is written every day about current world affairs. The noble aim is to see through the ambient chaos and identify the underlying trends that enable economic actors to project themselves into the future, the key to decision-making.

As a final note before a tactical pause around the short Easter break, I wanted to draw on Sigmund Freud's concept of the Oedipus complex and Jacques Lacan’s reworking of it to contribute to this effort.

From the late 1960s through the 1970s, it can be argued that much of Western civilization witnessed a rebellion against the symbolic Father. Authority, tradition, and religion were rejected in favor of autonomy and emancipation. Many psychoanalysts of the time interpreted this as a rupture with the paternal function — the law-giving, boundary-setting role placed at the center of psychic development.

Today’s sociopolitical trends suggest, instead, a rejection of the Mother. What is provoking the current backlash is the perception of excessive, infantilizing care and attention, as exemplified by the protective state and its expanding reach, from environmental regulation to education and inclusion policies. The rebellion is against the overpresent, overprotective, devouring mother who has been inhibiting ‘individuation’, i.e., the path to individual self-realization (see also ‘Pygmalion’, 2023).

From a psychoanalytical perspective, the rejection of the Father, followed by that of the Mother, creates what could be called a post-Oedipal vacuum. In the classical model, psychic development involves navigating tensions between the mother and the father. If both poles are discredited — the father as oppressive and the mother as overbearing — what is left?

A loss of symbolic structure disorients the psyche, causing desire to either fragment or seek totalizing substitutes. In other words, without symbolic anchors, desire becomes either anarchic or authoritarian.

In the former case, the psyche reverts to primitive instincts, a phenomenon Dr. Freud called ‘regression’: the ego retreats to earlier stages of development marked by immediacy and blurred boundaries. The ‘self’ detaches from social responsibility, giving rise to ‘L’Enfant-Monde’ as discussed earlier this year.

In the latter case, the craving for structure leads to the rise of a strong parental figure (which does not need to be a man) to fill the void where authority once stood.

Following this psychological logic, the next generation of politicians must create a new symbolic order based on a strong, mature, and empowering leadership that balances authority and care, firmness with empathy, structure with creativity – an application of the ‘Genius of the ‘And’.’ 

This new form of leadership may also emerge in the corporate world, where management (including Mother HR) will need to adapt their style to maximize the potential of their workforce in this new era.