European writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, permanently captured the cultural attitudes and popular opinions associated with the ideas of civilization and the primitive of their time. The Era of New Imperialism brought culturally polarizing ideas to the forefront of public thought—ideas like the exploitation of primitive peoples for the benefit of civilized Europeans. Several decades later, during the Interwar Period, many ideas of the previous century were challenged, yet many established attitudes remained. H. Rider Haggard’s She epitomized the new imperialist culture of the late 19th century as it promoted a naturally determined separation between the civilized and the primitive. Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents embodied the reflective yet traditional culture of the early 20th century by furthering the animalistic characterization of primitive people and by criticizing civilization for its impediment of people’s happiness.
In 1887, H. Rider Haggard wrote She, a novel that incorporated the attitudes and ideologies associated with the new imperialism that dominated European thought and policy of its time. During this era, European powers greatly increased their global influence; from the French colonization of Indochina to the British in India, nearly every western European country claimed possession of an overseas colony. One of the most important events of this imperialist period was the Berlin Conference of 1884-85. During this international meeting, European powers divided up the continent of Africa into separate European colonies. Not a single African was present; the conference was an exclusive meeting of European powers to negotiate the details of their possession of an entire continent....
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...ss. When compared to Haggard’s older, more polarizing opinions, Freud’s ideas seem more moderate, as he noted both positive and negative features of each societal type. These two sets of opinions on civilization and the primitive could be made relevant to some of today’s issues, like the widening technological gap between developed countries and third-world nations. As western countries become remarkably more advanced in technology, medicine, and education, a moral question arises: is it the duty of first-world nations to share their modern advancements with the people of more primitive countries? Perhaps a closer look into the ideas of Haggard or Freud would lend a valuable answer.
Works Cited
Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. Ed. and Trans. James Strachey. New York: Norton, 1962.
Haggard, H. Rider. She. New York: The Modern Library, 2002.
Freud, S., Strachey, J., Freud, A., Rothgeb, C., & Richards, A. (1953). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (1st ed.). London: Hogarth Press.
Tony Crisp Discussion Forum: Sigmund Freud Copyright © 1999-2010 Tony Crisp | All rights reserved
Thornton, Stephen. "Freud, Sigmund [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 16 Apr. 2001. Web. 08 Mar. 2011. .
Freud, Sigmund. The Future of an Illusion. New York: Norton & Company Inc., 1961. Print.
...en civilization and the individual. Living in a nation still recovering from a brutally violent war (Germany), Freud began to criticize organized religion as a collective neurosis, or mental disorder. Freud, a strong proponent of atheism, argued that religion tamed asocial instincts and created a sense of community because of the shared set of beliefs. This undoubtedly helped a civilization. However, at the same time organized religion also exacts an enormous psychological cost to the individual by making him or her perpetually subordinate to the primal figure embodied by God.
Even in the early twentieth century, Freud was able to not only diagnose the “illness” of the society that he lived in, but was also brilliant in stating that civilization pays no attention to the happiness of the individual. This quote also demonstrates that an individual who believes that there is more “merit” in obeying rules that are hard to follow are actually at a disadvantage in contrast to those around him/her who may disregard those precepts. Overall, the two thinker’s analytical texts impact our perception of morality, even with our different modern values.
I think that a lot civilians tend towards forget everybody of Freud’s suggestions because they do not concede with a few. I think that a lot of Freud’s suggestions are tied towards his moments, although I think that there is a few that play an meaningful role within human facilities and shall perpetuate towards play a powerful role within the moments towards come. Freud was excellent at innovation and was an excellent observer of human conditions. Freud is a name that you can encounter regarding psychology today and shall be a portion of psychology within the future.
Freud, Sigmund. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. Ed. James Strachey. Trans. James Strachey. Standard. Vol. 22. London: Hogarth Press, 1964.
Freud, Sigmund. Ego and the Id of Sigmund Freud (The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological works of Sigmund Freud Series).
Willbern, David. "Reading After Freud." Ed. G. Douglas Atkins and Laura Morrow. Contemporary Literary Theory. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989. 158-179.
Losh, Elizabeth. "Sigmund Freud." Twentieth-Century European Cultural Theorists: Second Series. Ed. Paul Hansom. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 296. Literature Resource Center. Web. 3 Jan. 2011.
Freud, Sigmund, and James Strachey. An Outline of Psychoanalysis. New York: W. W. Norton, 1949. Print.
Stwertka, Eve. Psychoanalysis: from Freud to the Age of Therapy. New York: Franklin Watts, 1988. Print.
Freud begins Totem and Taboo by postulating an equation between the psychological development of the earliest human societies, living in the simplest forms of social organization or the primitives, contemporary human societies who lack any sense of modern culture and live under similarly simple forms of social organization which can be called savages and neurosis. Freud focusses on the paradox that although it is expected that the savages or primitive people might have no sexual ethics set, surprisingly these people have strict avoidance of incestuous relation disobeying which leads to punishment. Primitive and savage societies have equivalent forms of social and religious organization, namely totemism. Furthermore, strict practices were undertaken to prevent even seeing an individual with whom one might have incest, called avoidances. Freud extrapolates that repressed incestuous desires between family members are most likely the explanation for all avoidances, according with knowledge garnered from his studies on infantile sexuality. The original choices of love objects for infants are their family members, particularly the boy for his mother and then his sister if he has one, but these are always repressed. In most cases the boy successfully substitutes other women outside the family for these original choices, but neurotic patients suffer from inhibition and regression, or that “he has either failed to get free from the psycho-sexual conditions that prevailed in his childhood or he has returned to them.” In civilized societies, this condition is relatively rare, but Freud speculates that in primitive or savage societies sexual desires have not been as successfully sublimated as in modern Europe, such that the equation between primitives, savages, and neurotics seems to him justified by the available
Sigmund Freud has made significant contributions to society. His ideals about how society both functions and interacts have shaped the world in implicit and explicit ways. His theories were passed on to his nephew, Bernie Bernays, which then made them a reality. His ideas also resonate with the observations of other theorists, such as Marcuse. The film “The Century of the Self” put the ways we are unwillingly controlled into perspective. Consumerism has masked itself in all aspects of our lives to manipulate the individual, control masses, and suppress individuality.