The desire to live and the transmission of knowledge

psychoanalytic and philosophical perspectives

Abstract

This article aims at addressing the issue of the transmission of knowledge at the present time. We art from the high suicide rate among young people to demonstrate that this fact is not contingent, but it is a structural failure of modern society as a whole, especially in what Freud understood as a desire to live. Facing this, we relate the desire to live with the issue of transmission. From there, we try to relate the transmission as from four central perspectives: the subject, the education, the tradition and the history or the time. To our understanding, transmission involves more than a specific method of passage of the content, but implies the transmission of knowledge that can only be thought of as desire. Therefore, each central perspective will be approached by a specific thinker. Freud to deal with the issue of transmission in the subject. Rancière to think about transmission in education. Benjamin to deal with transmission in tradition. And Agamben to approach it according to time and history. We argue that suicide in our times can only be approached effectively if we treat it as a structural symptom of failure to transmit knowledge.