January 28th, 2026

For today we went into detail about the Ego, Superego, and Id. We did not go into it as deeply as a psychology course would, although in my experience my psych classes just dogged on Freud a lot and how his theories just do not hold up in reality. Although I do find people citing him on social media when they see posts about family members being weird to each other (e.g. Boy Moms).

The Ego is the conscious brain, it is the tip of the iceberg. The Ego is the rational part of the brain, it takes the desires of the Id and wants of the Superego and presents what is acceptable to society. The Superego is the part of the subconscious that is concerned about what we should do. It is actually not the subconscious really but the preconscious, it lies just beneath the surface. The Id is the fucked up part, it is in the deepest depths and is concerned about what it wants which is typically based around sex and death. It is quite violent and lies in the subconscious. The Id is also the most powerful of the three.

When there is a struggle of balance between these three pieces then we have mental illness. Is this true? No, of course not, but the theory became very popular after World War One due to cynicism dominating the culture. Psychoanalysis was used in art, like in the Rebecca West novel and in AQOWF.

We used this knowledge to talk more in-depth about the novel and the movie. Here are some things said:

WWI was very different from WWII. Yes, technically the Kaiser started the war but by 1916-1917 no one could even remember what they were fighting for.

Paul comes from an upper class family, so when he returns from the front on leave (he will go back shortly) he goes to some sort of country club to chat with his Father’s friends. These men show the disconnect between the ruling classes back home compared to the experiences of the soldiers. When Paul gently opposes their strategies for winning the war they laugh at him and say he has a narrow view of what is going on when he is the one actually there.

They quite literally treat the war like a strategy game, moving mugs of beer around and laughing. Has anything truly changed? Warfare itself, yes. These elites were acting like it was still like the old days, when in actuality trench warfare was more brutal and stalling. The strategy of cutting through Belgium to defeat the French was actually the biggest mistake Germany could’ve made.