Musings on Ares

Ares represents the instinctual, animal sides of our nature, as represented by the Wiccan Horned Lord, or in Freudian terms, the Id:

From Wikipedia

The id comprises of the unorganised part of the personality structure that contains the basic drives. The id acts according to the "pleasure principle", seeking to avoid pain or unpleasure aroused by increases in instinctual tension. The id is unconscious [ie. instinctive, and non-rational] by definition:

"It is the dark, inaccessible part of our personality... We approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations... It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organisation, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle"

In the id, "contrary impulses exist side by side, without cancelling each other out... [T]he the id... contains everything that is inherited, that is present at birth, is laid down in the constitution — above all, therefore, the instincts..."

The id is responsible for our basic drives, "knows no judgements of value: no good and evil, no morality...Instinctual cathexes seeking discharge — that, in our view, is all there is in the id." It is regarded as "the great reservoir of libido", the instinctive drive to create — the life instincts that are crucial to pleasurable survival. Alongside the life instincts came the death instincts — the death drive which Freud articulated relatively late in his career in "the hypothesis of a death instinct, the task of which is to lead organic life back into the inanimate state." For Freud, "the death instinct would thus seem to express itself — though probably only in part — as an instinct of destruction directed against the external world and other organisms": i.e., through aggression. Freud considered that "the id, the whole person... originally includes all the instinctual impulses... the destructive instinct as well as Eros or the life instincts.”

Positive aspects: Mighty heart, and father of victory. Helper of justice, leader of just men, carrier of the staff of manhood, dispenser of youth’s sweet courage.

Negative aspects: The grim spirit of slaughter and bloodshed, father of fear and panic. Mindless violence.

Neutral aspects: Acting from the heart rather than the head. Passion; amoral, instinctive sexuality. Living in the moment.