Freud Response: Sigmund Freud Freud\'s

Freud

Response: Sigmund Freud

Freud's ideas have become such an integral part of our popular culture it is easy to forget how revolutionary his ideas were during the 19th century. The idea of the id, ego, and superego suggests that human beings are animals who are often not fully aware of all of their real motivations. For example, my sex drive (id) may make me want the girl next door (ego plotting a way to satisfy the desires of the id), and I might plan to win her to fulfill this (ego-driven) desire but because simply taking her is not socially acceptable, instead I decide I 'really' want to go out for the football team, unconsciously trying to make myself into the type of person she wants to date by winning societal approval in a way that I tell myself a 'real man should' (superego). Sometimes we act out of instinct, other times societal impulses rein us in, but we can never fully know ourselves, although by becoming more aware of our suppressed desires and bringing them to light, we can lead happier lives. Before Freud, it was assumed that rationality could provide a solution to such intractable problems as the existence of God or mental illness, but Freud suggested that the irrational was present within us all, not just primitive humankind and desires and beliefs could not always be explained (or disproved) through science alone.

Response 2: Freud

Freud's statement that the only human purpose is to reproduce does not mean that life is meaningless, but that humans are driven, much like animals, not by higher spiritual motivations as theorized in Judaism and Christianity. Even the idea of God comes from the primal, id-driven need for security in a cruel world, the type of security one desires from one's idealized parents. This not only deflates the importance of God, but also one's parents, as it suggests that one's parents are never entirely good enough to provide complete security and comfort. It also suggests that the need for God is childish as well as primitive, a desire to remain in an infantile state when a person has all of his or her needs fulfilled without real effort. Often, humans feel helpless in the face of their problems, and it is easy to look to a Higher Power to solve those problems. This seems like an incomplete view of the very multifaceted and complex beliefs surrounding the divine around the world, as it focuses only on the controlling function of God, and a patriarchal image of the divine.