prohibition

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noun

A refusal to allow: ban, disallowance, forbiddance, inhibition, interdiction, proscription, taboo. See allow/prevent.

n

Definition: ban, forbiddance
Antonyms: allowance, clearance, permission

Closing a Saloon During Prohibition

Did some US states already prohibit alcoholic beverages even before the US passed the 18th Amendment?

In 1846, Maine became the first US state to pass a Prohibition law. Many other states followed suit and by the time the 18th Amendment took effect on January 16, 1920 — the Prohibition law had been passed exactly one year earlier, by 36 of the 48 states — 33 states had already passed laws prohibiting the manufacture, sale or transportation of alcoholic beverages. What many people had not taken into consideration was how much organized crime in major American cities would benefit from the new law. Criminals like Al Capone made millions of dollars illicitly bootlegging, smuggling and selling alcohol. The general public became increasingly dissatisfied as racketeering and social problems related to Prohibition grew, and the movement to repeal the amendment grew. In December 1933, the 21st Amendment was passed and ratified, repealing the 18th Amendment and Prohibition. It is still the only time an Amendment to the US Constitution was repealed in its entirety.

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From our Archives: Today's Highlights, January 16, 2010

The term prohibition has been borrowed by psychoanalysis from everyday language, where it is used either as an adjective to describe something we are not allowed to do, say, see, think, or be; or substantively to refer to the law, social constraint, moral education, and so on, on which this prohibition is based.

Psychoanalytic language gives a more precise meaning to the term, however. Prohibition can present itself to the subject as external, and be internalized as a result of its associated dynamic of conflict; it can also result from structural requirements inherent in the mind. In every case the formulation of the prohibition and its operation can be partially or totally unconscious, even when the resulting conduct and its justification are explicit.

The concept appears early in Freud's work and can be found in the Studies on Hysteria (1895d), where the subject, driven by desires prohibited by morality, consciously forms "representations that are irreconcilable" with that morality, and then refuses them satisfaction, doing away with them by making them unconscious through repression. Those desires are always, in the final analysis, sexual in nature, especially in the case of the "neuro-psychoses of defense." "The etiology of hysteria almost inevitably can be traced to a psychic conflict, an irreconcilable representation, which prompts into action the defense of the ego and provokes repression" (Freud, 1896b). From the very outset, then, the notion of prohibition is inseparable from the drive-defense conflict, which will constitute the core of psychoanalytic theory.

Initially, that is to say, within the framework of the first topography and the first theory of drives, Freud studied the libidinal origins of the conflict and its treatment through repression (these are the texts on metapsychology from 1915) as well as its educational ("Little Hans," 1915), sociological and ethnological (Totem and Taboo, 1912-1913a) origins. The formulation of the Oedipus complex then focused attention on the prohibition of incest.

Subsequently, the formulation of the second topography led to a redefinition of prohibition. Here, the ego appears as prey to conflicts where it is torn between "three masters": the id and its libidinal demands, reality and adaptive requirements, and a superego that is essentially defined as an agent of prohibition. (However, to this must be added the more positive functions of the ego ideal, which condenses all the moral values the subject claims to hold.)

Although throughout his work Freud presents the incest prohibition as the heart of the conflictual dynamic, he also discusses prohibitions that affect other manifestations of sexuality, primarily masturbation and the satisfaction of the partial drives or compound instincts (voyeurism, exhibitionism, anal pleasure). Generalization of the limitations created by these prohibitions can lead to serious inhibitions of thought. Moreover, it has been shown how the repression of the drives can lead to serious reaction formations, especially when aggression is poorly integrated.

Bibliography

Freud, Sigmund. (1896b). Further remarks on the neuro-psychoses of defence. SE, 3: 157-185.

Freud Sigmund, and Breuer, Josef. (1895d). Studies on hysteria. SE, 2: 48-106.

Mijolla-Mellor, Sophie de. (1993). Le "bon droit" du criminel. Topique, 52, 141-161.

Milner, Marion. (1991). On est prié de fermer les yeux. Le regard interdit. Paris: Gallimard.

—ROGER PERRON

IN BRIEF: A decree or an order forbidding something.

That club had a prohibition against wearing sleeveless t-shirts.

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For a list of words related to prohibition, see:

• Drinking Terms - prohibition: legal forbidding of manufacture and sale of alcoholic drinks

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - forbud

Nederlands (Dutch)
verbod, drooglegging (alcoholverbod), verbodsbepaling

Français (French)
n. - interdiction, défense

Deutsch (German)
n. - Verbot

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - απαγόρευση, (ιστ.) (ΗΠΑ) ποτοαπαγόρευση

Italiano (Italian)
divieto

Português (Portuguese)
n. - proibição (f)

Русский (Russian)
запрет

Español (Spanish)
n. - prohibición

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - förbud

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
禁令, 禁止

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 禁令, 禁止

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 금지, 금제, 금령

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 禁止, 禁制, 禁止令, 酒類醸造販売禁止, 禁酒法, 禁令

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) منع‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮איסור, צו-איסור‬

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