Freud\'s Writing by Socrates and Socrates\' Writing

¶ … Freud's Writing by Socrates and Socrates' Writing by Freud

Socrates Commenting on Freud's Civilization and its Discontents

Sigmund Freud presents a very interesting set of principles in his work Civilization and its Discontents. Here, he describes his belief in the true identity of the nature of man. More than anything else, man is aggressive. This aggression is essentially caused out of the tension and conflict between innate primal desires and the demands of social mores. Such aggression is often channeled through the death drive, the primal need to destroy which must be released in one way or another, even in a modern context.

In this view, society then attempts to civilize that aggressiveness so that we can live together without killing each other. It redirects primal and sexual energies into more positively viewed energies and behaviors. In Freud's view, religion serves as an institute of society, and aims to tame the naturally wild and aggressive state humans are born into. Thus, Freud stresses the inseparable relationship between society and the individual that I simply cannot agree with. Civilization makes men unhappy, but it is a necessary evil to enjoy some of the finer rewards living in society has to offer. In this, Freud rightfully believes that the price of civilization is simply too high,

Yet, this is where I am personally lost, as morality and ethics do not stem from a common consensus within a society, but rather from the individual and his or her own actions. According to Freud, society restricts man, but I believe that the individual does have responsibility towards other people and the society in which one resides in. Essentially, the individual is the city; our individual identities are entirely wrapped up with the context of the cities we live in. Therefore, breaking with the city is like breaking with oneself. As I show in "Crito" in Plato's Five Dialogues, this belief is in stark contrast with Freud's concept of how the city and civilization only restricts the individual and how the individual is not happy within those restrictions. Yet, I believe in adhering to the laws of one's society out of my moral obligation to do what is right. I stand true to this belief, as I always have done, and am willing to risk my life in order to uphold the laws of my dear city, Athens.

Moreover, the value of inquiry is an important element in Freud's work which I can also actually agree with. The reality principle is the concept that human beings try to avoid suffering through regulating their pursuit of pleasure. Inquiry is an important step to understanding the world around us and therefore creating the reality principle and how it maintains our own individual desires and emotions. This keeps us more in tune with the external world. It is an important concept in Freud's psychoanalysis that the individual should spend great effort in understanding the self as well, in order to help ease the tension of repressed memories and experiences. Another element that I do agree with Freud on is our unconscious selves as determining the path of our own inquiries. Freud posits the concept of the subconscious. At first glance, it is unknown to us; yet, with continual inquiry into its strange idiosyncrasies as exhibition of our repressed memories and experiences we begin to understand more of ourselves. My personal philosophy is that we have a connection to an immortal soul. Once again, at first glance, its conditions are lost to us. But then we continuously recollect knowledge and truth from our immortal soul, which is very similar to Freud's concept of the unconsciousness. The unconscious Id holds a number of repressed experiences that hold a wealth of knowledge into why we are the way we are. It is a crucial element in psychoanalysis to unravel that mystery, just as it is an important element within the context of my own philosophies.

Part II: Freud's Response to "Sermon on the Mount"

Even I must admit to this being one of Jesus' most influential sermons in all of the New Testament. It is one of the sermons which truly reflect the founding principles of Christianity. It features the "Lord's Prayer" and stresses a much softer and benevolent view of the traditionally commanding God of the Old Testament. In his sermon, Jesus Christ shows how one must life a good and pure life in order to receive the gift of Heaven. In fact, the whole sermon is extremely positive. This created a situation where the fear was removed from Christian worship of God, who had before been a figure to often fear in the context of the Old Testament. The "Sermon on the Mount" proposes mercy and compassion, rather than force and fear. This is established most in the beatitiudes, or blessings, which are the two line mini-philosophies that set up a particular condition and its subsequent result. One of the most notable here is "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy," (Matthew 5:7). This essentially supports the oceanic feeling of a false sense of eternity I discuss in my work, Civilization and its Discontents. The sermon itself sets up a situation where the image of eternity is available to us mere mortals through good works and living a benevolent life. Yet, this is the very type of teaching that provides us with our false sense of eternity.

However, this positivity is often not in the hearts of the men and women Jesus was aiming to reach out to. The death drive, a major philosophy of my own, is apparent in all men and women, both civilized and uncivilized. Again in my work, Civilization and its Discontents, I discuss how man has an inherently violent drive towards destruction. We each have this destructive force residing within us all, and it is a natural part of being human despite the fact that Jesus' sermon is asking us to totally absolve ourselves of one of our most primitive and basic emotions. It is only through his relationship with society, which like religion tells him he must behave appropriately, that this drive is filtered into other elements of his life. Yet, this death drive of internal destruction is never really absolved, but rather is distracted through the offerings society has to give each of us in return for our modified behaviors. Therefore, Jesus' life of benevolence that he discusses in his "Sermon on the Mount" is impossible to reach with such a destructive force residing within us all.

The only thing I could agree with in the slightest bit is the concept that man is essentially fallible. Jesus does stress the inherent fact that man's mortality leads him towards making mistakes. People will naturally sin because they are imperfect. This correlates with my own theory of the Id, or the subconscious primitive center of man's consciousness which is at the very basis of our behaviors. The unconscious has ruled the foundations of human mental activity since the beginning of man.