Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche Both Addressed

Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche both addressed the concept of human nature and of the society in which human nature are bound by. However due to their different approaches on the matter, they formulated totally different theories for each. This paper endeavours to explore their theories behind human nature, the impact of the world they were living in at the time, religion and approaching utopia through Freud's Civilization and its Discontents and Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil.

Regarding human nature, Freud was reticent in purporting that we are inherently sinful, but rather that we come in this world full of Id. This wild, instinctive foundation is the basis upon which the infrastructure of the human psyche is erected. We are born into a dangerous world and we endeavor to evade pain and secure pleasure. Freud perceives the Id as a product of our evolutionary progress as Darwin outlined it (e.g. natural selection needs a conflict to ensue for staying alive as well as reproduction). So Freud's assessment of human nature is rather cynical, we are fundamentally egotistical self-justifying pursuers of hedonistic satisfactions, which comprises aggression and sex.

Beginning with Id but never relinquishing it, we progress as infant-toddlers to form an Ego by being educated on the divisions that exist between the outside world and us. Afterwards, we also form a Superego as our families and society employ outside reward and punishment schemes to influence us into becoming our own regulatory body. For example, prior to forming a Superego, the initial phase is 'social anxiety' whereby people are influenced by others' opinions on their behavior. (Freud, Sigmund., 1961, p. 85) Freud believed much of his own society was governed through this method. But he also advocates that society must progress past that stage to the internalization of authority, that is, behavior managed by social conventions is more uncultured than conduct in which each person is policed mainly by an authority working within themselves. Morality should be seen less as an undertaking of humiliation (that is, enforced by society) than of guilt (that is, personally enforced).

Nietzsche explored the definition of human nature and what dictates human behaviour in a different way. Basically "a living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength -- life itself is will to power, self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results." (Nietzsche, Friedrich., 1998, p. 13) This concept of will was explored further. "Every choice human being strives instinctively for a citadel and a secrecy where he is saved from the crowd, the many, the great majority -- where he may forget 'men who are the rule,' being their exception -- excepting only the one case in which he is pushed straight to such men by a still stronger instinct, as a seeker after knowledge in the great and exceptional sense. Anyone who, in intercourse with men, does not occasionally glisten in all the colors of distress, green and gray with disgust, satiety, sympathy, gloominess and loneliness, is certainly not a man of elevated tastes." (Nietzsche, Friedrich., 1998, p. 26) In other words, while Freud believed our drive derived from our aggression tempered by our guilt, Nietzsche believed it was our will to power that influenced our behaviour.

The society of the time influenced their thought processes greatly. For instance, Freud had his reasons for his pessimism. He wrote Civilization and its Discontent in 1930 at the age of 74. He survived WWI, where three of his sons were soldiers. Freud survived the Post-War famines (where his daughter died) and he battled cancer of the jaw since 1923 (experiencing a number of painful operations and ensuing addiction to morphine and cocaine). Freud beheld the resurrection of anti-Semitism in Austria and Germany and the ascent of Fascism.

Religion was also tackled. Nietzsche didn't believe in much of the established religious ideologies. He believed devotion, self-denial for others, the whole virtue of self-sacrifice must be examined comprehensively. He believed there is too much charm and sugar in loving your neighbor unconditionally. (Nietzsche, Friedrich., 1998, p. 33)

Freud tackled the topic of religion with his usual pessimism. Several times in his publication, Freud criticizes the saints in history, "for the more virtuous a man is, the more severe and distrustful is its behaviour, so that ultimately it is precisely those people who have carried saintliness furthest who reproach themselves with the worst employees." (Freud, Sigmund., 1961, p. 87) Freud was blatantly a proponent of religion, characterizing it as "so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life." (Freud, Sigmund., 1961, p. 22)

In relation to approaching utopia, Freud continues his cynicism. He believed the actuality of this inclination to aggression, which we can see in ourselves and correctly presuppose to be alive in others is the element that disrupts our interactions with others and makes it vital for culture to summon its exalted propositions. Polite society is continually threatened with breakdown through this innate animosity of men towards each other. However, Freud had an answer to this dilemma. According to Freud, "The fateful question for the human species seems to me to be whether and to what extent their cultural development will succeed in mastering the disturbance to their communal life by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction. Men have gained control over the forces of nature to such an extent that with their help they would have no difficulty in exterminating one another to the last man. They know this, and hence comes a large part of their current unrest, their happiness and their mood of anxiety." (Freud, Sigmund., 1961, p. 145) Freud believed that Men's tendencies towards aggression should not be hindered by society. These feelings must have an outlet or else Men cannot hope to achieve happiness. If societies are smaller yet multitudinous, than Men within these societies can be drawn to one another against the other groups. Also, any hindrance to Men's aggression must come from the individual (that is, in the form of guilt), not through societal coercion.