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Civilization instills certain necessary checks to contain sexual and aggressive impulses, like feelings of guilt. The original, Oedipal anger of the boy against the father is turned inward, against himself, given that he is taught that it is 'wrong' to want to hurt his father and desire his mother.
Civilization and its Discontents is partially an argument against utopian philosophies like Marxism. Freud's concept is that society is inherently masochistic in nature, dependent upon feelings of guilt and sacrifice to function. A utopia is impossible. The innate impulses of desire and aggressiveness of the individual will always be in conflict with other individuals and the collective. To be truly 'happy' in an ecstatic sense would mean destroying the rights of others. If everyone lived by the law of the id, then only the strongest would survive. Society aims for moderation: a moderate satisfaction of the desires of all people through some sense of guilt and limitation through the power of the super ego. If there was no law and no sense of guilt, then some people would suffer in extreme pain, subject to the will of others.
The fundamental problem with communism, according to Freud, is that economic acquisition is not the root of all evil: desire for others and the primitive aggressive impulse also causes conflict. Economic disparities are one of many types of latent sources of anger...
Scarce resources is put individuals and collectives at odds for land, food, and love.
Reformers, whether communists, feminists, or those who would make a claim for sexual liberation may be right in finding fault with the injustices of society but they must acknowledge what must be overcome when creating a so-called perfect civilization. Unneeded suffering may be unwelcome, but civilization, through the process of creating its necessary structures, inevitably causes some unnecessary as well as necessary sacrifices and pain for some individuals. Conflict and pain are unavoidable, and acceptance of these facts is essential to obtain some measure of psychological health.
Critics would say that Freud is a pessimist; others would say he is a realist about the scarcity of resources and the inevitable opportunity costs to the individual due to the process of civilization. But it could be argued that Freud was too accepting of the limits placed upon members of his society, such as women, the members of the working classes, and different ethnic and racial groups. Even if perfection is not possible, this does not mean that all social laws must be accepted without question and change is impossible.
Freud Civilization and Its Discontents Sigmund Freud's volume, Civilization and its Discontents, he tackles no less than the broad and ambitious concept of man's place in the world. In this volume, he looks at culture from his unique psychoanalytical perspective, and touches upon a number of important concepts, including aggression, civilization and the individual, organized religion, the death drive and Eros, and the super-ego and conscience. Civilization and its Discontents was
Freud Civilization and Its Discontents Humankind strives for happiness, but according to Sigmund Freud, the creation of civilization as a means to further this goal has instead generated unhappiness. In his book Civilization and its Discontents, Freud asserts the happiness of the individual is often sublimated to the need for civilization to establish law and order. People have an instinctual desire for absolute freedom which includes a need to be sexually
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents: Why does Freud think life is hard for human beings? people likely to be happier in a civilized or uncivilized state? What are the benefits of order? Why is civilization hostile to sexuality? How does civilization inhibit aggression? Freud's central paradigm is that the tension between the individual and civilization is historically grounded in the violence of warfare and humanity in the early part of
Modern civilization required more sublimation and repression of desires, both sexual and destructive aggressive desires, than most people were capable of maintaining for long periods without either physical, or psychological, illnesses developing. 'Civilization', in early twentieth century Europe in particular, required too much renunciation of the release of instinctual desires, from which pleasure could be derived, so that many people became physically, psychologically, or psycho-somatically, ill and discomforted, or,
Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents Socrates on Freud's Civilization and its Discontents: Religion, the nature of man and the value of inquiry According to Sigmund Freud's Civilization and its Discontents, certain aspects of human nature are immutable. In some ways I do agree with this: I believe that every human being has a certain, innate tendency or ability to do something uniquely well. That is why I devised my vision of an ideal
.. But they seem to have observed that this newly-won power over space and time, this subjugation of the forces of nature, which is the fulfillment of a longing that goes back thousands of years, has not increased the amount of pleasurable satisfaction which they may expect from life and has not made them feel happier." This insight then, marked the point in which he asserted that in order for