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Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud
Delve into the depths of the human psyche with "Civilization and Its Discontents" by Sigmund Freud. Explore Freud's groundbreaking exploration of the tensions between individual desires and societal norms, and uncover the hidden forces that shape human behavior.
As you immerse yourself in Freud's seminal work, prepare to confront the complexities of civilization and the inherent conflicts that arise from our primal instincts. From the pursuit of pleasure to the repression of desires, each page offers profound insights into the human condition and the challenges of living in society.But beyond the surface analysis of human behavior, "Civilization and Its Discontents" delves into deeper themes of morality, culture, and the quest for meaning. Freud's provocative ideas challenge conventional wisdom and invite readers to question the foundations of civilization itself.
Yet, amidst the complexities of human existence, a profound question How can Freud's exploration of the unconscious mind help us navigate the challenges of modern life and find greater fulfillment and happiness?Engage with Freud's thought-provoking ideas as you explore the tensions between individual freedom and social order, between instinctual drives and moral constraints. Whether you agree or disagree with Freud's conclusions, "Civilization and Its Discontents" offers a fascinating journey into the depths of the human psyche.
Now, as you delve into "Civilization and Its Discontents," consider How will Freud's insights into the nature of civilization and human nature reshape your understanding of yourself and the world around you?Don't miss the opportunity to explore the complexities of human existence with "Civilization and Its Discontents." Acquire your copy today and embark on a journey of self-discovery and intellectual exploration that will challenge your assumptions and expand your horizons.
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As you immerse yourself in Freud's seminal work, prepare to confront the complexities of civilization and the inherent conflicts that arise from our primal instincts. From the pursuit of pleasure to the repression of desires, each page offers profound insights into the human condition and the challenges of living in society.But beyond the surface analysis of human behavior, "Civilization and Its Discontents" delves into deeper themes of morality, culture, and the quest for meaning. Freud's provocative ideas challenge conventional wisdom and invite readers to question the foundations of civilization itself.
Yet, amidst the complexities of human existence, a profound question How can Freud's exploration of the unconscious mind help us navigate the challenges of modern life and find greater fulfillment and happiness?Engage with Freud's thought-provoking ideas as you explore the tensions between individual freedom and social order, between instinctual drives and moral constraints. Whether you agree or disagree with Freud's conclusions, "Civilization and Its Discontents" offers a fascinating journey into the depths of the human psyche.
Now, as you delve into "Civilization and Its Discontents," consider How will Freud's insights into the nature of civilization and human nature reshape your understanding of yourself and the world around you?Don't miss the opportunity to explore the complexities of human existence with "Civilization and Its Discontents." Acquire your copy today and embark on a journey of self-discovery and intellectual exploration that will challenge your assumptions and expand your horizons.
```
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September 15, 2025
FREUD’S ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN CIVILIZATION AS A RESULT OF THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) wrote in the first chapter of this 1930 book, “It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement---that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life. And yet, in making any general judgment of this sort, we are in danger of forgetting how variegated the human world and its mental life are. There are a few men from whom their contemporaries do not withhold admiration, although their greatness rests on attributes and achievements which are completely foreign to the aims and ideals of the multitude. One might easily be inclined to suppose that it is after all only a minority which appreciates great men, while the large majority cares nothing for them. But things are probably not as simple as that, thanks to the discrepancies between people’s thoughts and their actions, and to the diversity of their wishful impulses.” (Pg. 11)
He continues, “One of these exceptional few … [is] my friend … I had sent him my small book [‘The Future of an Ililuson’]… and he answered that he entirely agreed with my judgment about religion, but that he was sorry I had not properly appreciated the true source of religious sentiments. This, he says, consists in a peculiar feeling… a sensation of ‘eternity’… ‘oceanic.’ This feeling, he adds, is a purely subjective fact… it brings no assurance of personal immortality… One may, he thinks, rightly call oneself religious on the ground of this oceanic feeling alone, even if one rejects every belief and every illusion. The views expressed by the friend whom I so much honor… caused me no small difficulty. I cannot discover this ‘oceanic’ feeling in myself… From my own experience I could not convince myself of the primary nature of such a feeling. But this gives me no right to deny that it does in fact occur in other people. The only question is … whether it ought to be regarded as the [source and origin] of the whole need for religion. I have nothing to suggest which could have a decisive influence on the solution to this problem.” (Pg. 11-12)
He states, “the adult’s ego-feeling cannot have been the same from the beginning. It must have gone through a process of development... An infant at the breast does not as yet distinguish his ego from the external world… He gradually learns to do so… A further … disengagement of the ego from the general mass of sensations… is provided by the … unavoidable sensations of pain and displeasure… which is enjoined by the pleasure principle… One comes to learn… [to] differentiate between what is internal… [and] what emanates from the outer world. In this way one makes the first step towards the introduction of the reality principle which is to dominate future development.” (Pg. 13-14)
He says, “We… turn to the less ambitious question of what men … show… to be the purpose and intention of their lives. What do they … wish to achieve in it?... They strive after happiness… This endeavor … aims … at an absence of pain and unpleasure, and … strong feelings of pleasure… man’s activity develops in two directions… as it seeks to realize… the one or the other of these aims.” (Pg. 23)
He continues, “one of the forms in which love manifests itself---sexual love---has given us our most intense experience… and has thus furnished us with a pattern for our search for happiness… we are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love… But this does not dispose of the technique of living based on the value of love as a means to happiness.” (Pg. 29)
He acknowledges that “Our enquiry concerning happiness has not so far taught us much… the three sources from which our suffering comes: the superior power of nature, the feebleness of our own bodies and the inadequacy of the regulations which adjust the mutual relationships of human beings in the family, the state and society… This recognition … points the direction for our activity. If we cannot remove all suffering, we can … mitigate some… we cannot see why the regulations made by ourselves should not… be a protection and benefit for every one of us… we come upon a contention …that what we call our civilization is largely responsible for our misery… How has it happened that so many people have come to take up this strange attitude of hostility to civilization?.... [Men] seem to have observed that this… subjugation of the forces of nature… has not increased the amount of pleasurable satisfaction… has not made them feel happier.” (Pg. 33-35)
He argues, “Man has… become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs he is truly magnificent; but those organs… still give him much trouble at times… present-day man does not feel happy in his Godlike character.” (Pg. 38-39)
He explains, “Human life in common is only made possible when a majority come together which is stronger than any separate individual… This replacement of the power of the individual by the power of a community constitutes the decisive step of civilization. The essence of it lies in the fact that the members of the community restrict themselves in their possibilities of satisfaction, whereas the individual knew no such restrictions. The first requisite of civilization, therefore, is that of justice… The final outcome should be a rule of law to which all… have contributed by a sacrifice of their instincts, and which leaves no one… at the mercy of brute force.” (Pg. 42)
He asserts, “Present-day civilization … will only permit sexual relationships on the basis of a solitary, indissoluble bond between one man and one woman… Civilized society has found itself obliged to pass over in silence many transgressions which… it ought to have punished. But we must not… assume that… such an attitude on the part of society is entirely innocuous. The sexual life of civilized man is … severely impaired… Sometimes one seems to perceive that it is not only the pressure of civilization … which denies us full satisfaction and urges us along other paths. This may be wrong. It is hard to decide.” (Pg. 52)
He laments, “we are unable to understand what the necessity is which forces civilization along this path and which causes its antagonism to sexuality. There must be some disturbing factor which we have not yet discovered. The clue may be supplied by one of the ideal demands… of civilized society. It runs: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’… Let us adopt a naïve attitude towards it, as though we were hearing it for the first time: we shall be unable then to suppress a feeling of surprise and bewilderment. Why should we do it? What good will it do us?... What is the point of a precept enunciated with so much solemnity if its fulfillment cannot be recommended as reasonable?” (Pg. 56-57)
He contends, “I think I can now hear a dignified voice admonishing me: ‘It is precisely because your neighbor is not worthy of love… that you should love him as yourself.’ I then understand that the case is one like that of ‘I believe BECAUSE it is absurd.’ … The element of truth behind all this… is that men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved… they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness.” (Pg. 58)
He asks, “What means does civilization employ in order to inhibit the aggressiveness which opposes it[?]… This we can study in the history of the development of the individual… His aggressiveness is introjected [and] internalized… it is directed towards his own ego… The tension between the harsh super-ego and the ego that is subjected to it, is called by us the sense of guilt; it expresses itself as a need for punishment. Civilization, therefore, obtains mastery over the individual’s dangerous desire for aggression by weakening and disarming it and by setting up an agency within him to watch over it.” (Pg. 70-71)
He suggests, “We cannot get away from the assumption that man’s sense of guilt springs from the Oedipus complex and was acquired at the killing of the father by the brothers banded together… The remorse was the result of the primordial ambivalence of feeling toward the father… Now, I think, we can at last grasp two things… the part played by love in the origin of conscience and the fatal inevitability of the sense of guilt.” (Pg. 78-79)
He concludes, “What began in relation to the father is completed in relation to the group. If civilization is a necessary course of development from the family to humanity as a whole, then---as a result of the inborn conflict arising from … the eternal struggle between the trends of love and death---there is inextricably bound up with an increase in the sense of guilt, which will perhaps reach heights that the individual finds hard to tolerate.” (Pg. 80)
Not a very persuasive argument---but a useful book for those studying Freud's later thought.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) wrote in the first chapter of this 1930 book, “It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement---that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life. And yet, in making any general judgment of this sort, we are in danger of forgetting how variegated the human world and its mental life are. There are a few men from whom their contemporaries do not withhold admiration, although their greatness rests on attributes and achievements which are completely foreign to the aims and ideals of the multitude. One might easily be inclined to suppose that it is after all only a minority which appreciates great men, while the large majority cares nothing for them. But things are probably not as simple as that, thanks to the discrepancies between people’s thoughts and their actions, and to the diversity of their wishful impulses.” (Pg. 11)
He continues, “One of these exceptional few … [is] my friend … I had sent him my small book [‘The Future of an Ililuson’]… and he answered that he entirely agreed with my judgment about religion, but that he was sorry I had not properly appreciated the true source of religious sentiments. This, he says, consists in a peculiar feeling… a sensation of ‘eternity’… ‘oceanic.’ This feeling, he adds, is a purely subjective fact… it brings no assurance of personal immortality… One may, he thinks, rightly call oneself religious on the ground of this oceanic feeling alone, even if one rejects every belief and every illusion. The views expressed by the friend whom I so much honor… caused me no small difficulty. I cannot discover this ‘oceanic’ feeling in myself… From my own experience I could not convince myself of the primary nature of such a feeling. But this gives me no right to deny that it does in fact occur in other people. The only question is … whether it ought to be regarded as the [source and origin] of the whole need for religion. I have nothing to suggest which could have a decisive influence on the solution to this problem.” (Pg. 11-12)
He states, “the adult’s ego-feeling cannot have been the same from the beginning. It must have gone through a process of development... An infant at the breast does not as yet distinguish his ego from the external world… He gradually learns to do so… A further … disengagement of the ego from the general mass of sensations… is provided by the … unavoidable sensations of pain and displeasure… which is enjoined by the pleasure principle… One comes to learn… [to] differentiate between what is internal… [and] what emanates from the outer world. In this way one makes the first step towards the introduction of the reality principle which is to dominate future development.” (Pg. 13-14)
He says, “We… turn to the less ambitious question of what men … show… to be the purpose and intention of their lives. What do they … wish to achieve in it?... They strive after happiness… This endeavor … aims … at an absence of pain and unpleasure, and … strong feelings of pleasure… man’s activity develops in two directions… as it seeks to realize… the one or the other of these aims.” (Pg. 23)
He continues, “one of the forms in which love manifests itself---sexual love---has given us our most intense experience… and has thus furnished us with a pattern for our search for happiness… we are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love… But this does not dispose of the technique of living based on the value of love as a means to happiness.” (Pg. 29)
He acknowledges that “Our enquiry concerning happiness has not so far taught us much… the three sources from which our suffering comes: the superior power of nature, the feebleness of our own bodies and the inadequacy of the regulations which adjust the mutual relationships of human beings in the family, the state and society… This recognition … points the direction for our activity. If we cannot remove all suffering, we can … mitigate some… we cannot see why the regulations made by ourselves should not… be a protection and benefit for every one of us… we come upon a contention …that what we call our civilization is largely responsible for our misery… How has it happened that so many people have come to take up this strange attitude of hostility to civilization?.... [Men] seem to have observed that this… subjugation of the forces of nature… has not increased the amount of pleasurable satisfaction… has not made them feel happier.” (Pg. 33-35)
He argues, “Man has… become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs he is truly magnificent; but those organs… still give him much trouble at times… present-day man does not feel happy in his Godlike character.” (Pg. 38-39)
He explains, “Human life in common is only made possible when a majority come together which is stronger than any separate individual… This replacement of the power of the individual by the power of a community constitutes the decisive step of civilization. The essence of it lies in the fact that the members of the community restrict themselves in their possibilities of satisfaction, whereas the individual knew no such restrictions. The first requisite of civilization, therefore, is that of justice… The final outcome should be a rule of law to which all… have contributed by a sacrifice of their instincts, and which leaves no one… at the mercy of brute force.” (Pg. 42)
He asserts, “Present-day civilization … will only permit sexual relationships on the basis of a solitary, indissoluble bond between one man and one woman… Civilized society has found itself obliged to pass over in silence many transgressions which… it ought to have punished. But we must not… assume that… such an attitude on the part of society is entirely innocuous. The sexual life of civilized man is … severely impaired… Sometimes one seems to perceive that it is not only the pressure of civilization … which denies us full satisfaction and urges us along other paths. This may be wrong. It is hard to decide.” (Pg. 52)
He laments, “we are unable to understand what the necessity is which forces civilization along this path and which causes its antagonism to sexuality. There must be some disturbing factor which we have not yet discovered. The clue may be supplied by one of the ideal demands… of civilized society. It runs: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’… Let us adopt a naïve attitude towards it, as though we were hearing it for the first time: we shall be unable then to suppress a feeling of surprise and bewilderment. Why should we do it? What good will it do us?... What is the point of a precept enunciated with so much solemnity if its fulfillment cannot be recommended as reasonable?” (Pg. 56-57)
He contends, “I think I can now hear a dignified voice admonishing me: ‘It is precisely because your neighbor is not worthy of love… that you should love him as yourself.’ I then understand that the case is one like that of ‘I believe BECAUSE it is absurd.’ … The element of truth behind all this… is that men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved… they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness.” (Pg. 58)
He asks, “What means does civilization employ in order to inhibit the aggressiveness which opposes it[?]… This we can study in the history of the development of the individual… His aggressiveness is introjected [and] internalized… it is directed towards his own ego… The tension between the harsh super-ego and the ego that is subjected to it, is called by us the sense of guilt; it expresses itself as a need for punishment. Civilization, therefore, obtains mastery over the individual’s dangerous desire for aggression by weakening and disarming it and by setting up an agency within him to watch over it.” (Pg. 70-71)
He suggests, “We cannot get away from the assumption that man’s sense of guilt springs from the Oedipus complex and was acquired at the killing of the father by the brothers banded together… The remorse was the result of the primordial ambivalence of feeling toward the father… Now, I think, we can at last grasp two things… the part played by love in the origin of conscience and the fatal inevitability of the sense of guilt.” (Pg. 78-79)
He concludes, “What began in relation to the father is completed in relation to the group. If civilization is a necessary course of development from the family to humanity as a whole, then---as a result of the inborn conflict arising from … the eternal struggle between the trends of love and death---there is inextricably bound up with an increase in the sense of guilt, which will perhaps reach heights that the individual finds hard to tolerate.” (Pg. 80)
Not a very persuasive argument---but a useful book for those studying Freud's later thought.
Displaying 1 of 1 review